GIFT   OF 
MICHAEL  REESE 


THE   LIFE   OF   THE   SPIRIT   IN 

THE  MODERN  ENGLISH 

POETS- 


BY 


VIDA  D.  SCUDDER 


€[VERSITY) 
OF  y 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


1895 


Copyright,  1895, 
BY  VIDA  D.  SCUDDER. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.  J7.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 1 

I.  SCIENCE  AND  THE  MODERN  POETS  ...         5 

1.  THE  MIGHT  OF  SCIENCE 5 

Democracy,  Science  and  Art     ....          5 

Evolution  as  Theme .8 

Evolution  as  Influence 12 

2.  THE  FORCE-IDEA 14 

Force  in  the  Poetry  of  Nature  .  .  .  .  14 
Force  in  the  Poetry  of  Character  .  .  .22 
Force  in  the  Poetry  of  Thought  ...  26 

3.  THE  UNITY-IDEA 28 

The  Idea  Absent 28 

The  Idea  Present  and  Justified    .         .         .         .31 

4.  THE  REALISTIC  TEMPER 37 

Subjection  to  the  Actual 37 

Reverence  for  Law 41 

Passion  for  Fact   .         .         .         .         .        .         .43 

5.  DANGERS  AND  SAFEGUARDS        .        .        .        .        51 
II.  WORDSWORTH  AND  THE  FEW  DEMOCRACY     .    57 

Exponent  of  the  New  Order  ....  57 
"  Lyrical  Ballads  "  and  its  Promise  .  .  .60 
The  Experience  of  Wordsworth  a  Prophetic 

Summary       . 64 

Loyalty  and  Despondency 68 

Wordsworth  and  a  Social  Democracy  .  .  73 
Wordsworth  and  Modern  Industry  .  .  .78 
Wordsworth  and  Carlyle  .  .  .  .  .  83 
Wordsworth,  Ruskin,  and  Morris  .  .  .87 
Wordsworth  and  the  Modern  Socialists  .  .  90 
Phases  of  the  Social  Renaissance  .  .  .92 


iv  CONTENTS 

III.  IDEALS    OF   REDEMPTION,   MEDLEVAL  AND 

MODERN 96 

Dante,  Spenser,  and  Shelley    ....        96 

Parallels  in  the  Poems 101 

The  Problems 104 

The  Protagonists 108 

Ethical  Scope 112 

The  Symbols  of  Salvation 119 

The  Ideals  of  Triumph 133 

Freedom  Spiritual  and  Freedom  Natural      .         .  139 

IV.  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 145 

1.  MODERN  REVERSIONS 145 

The  Power  of  the  Past 145 

The  Renaissance,  Old  and  New    ....  149 
The  Periods  Chosen 153 

2.  NEO-PAGANISM 156 

The  ^Esthetic  Attraction 158 

The  Ethical  Attraction 162 

The  Spiritual  Attraction           ....       164 
The  Result 169 

3.  THE  MEDIAEVAL  REVIVAL 172 

The  Banishment  of  Eros      .         .         .         .         .  172 

Asceticism,  Chivalry,  and  their  Modern  Interpre- 
ters        ........       175 

Attraction  and  Repulsion 178 

4.  THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE     .        .        .      185 

Esthetic  Naturalism 187 

^Estheticism  and  Dissatisfaction        .         .         .190 
The  Marriage  of  Cupid  and  Psyche      .         .         .  195 

5.  THE  OUTCOME 196 

V.  BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST         .        .        .        .201 

Mephisto  and  Idealist 201 

From  Wholes  to  Parts 206 

The  Development  of  Humor  in  Browning        .       209 

Grotesque  Art  in  Browning 214 

Ironic  Art  in  Browning 218 

Mockery  of  Truth       .  .         .         .  '      .         .         .223 

Mockery  of  Love 227 

Comparisons:   Clough,  Byron,  Swift,  Cervantes, 

Rabelais 230 

Idealist  and  Mephisto 234 


CONTENTS 

VI.  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH     .        .        .  .239 

1.  VICTORIAN  POETRY      .        .        .    .    .        .        .      239 

The  Conditions 241 

The  Men 243 

The  Quest     .         . 244 

2.  THE  POETS  OF  DOUBT 247 

Matthew  Arnold 247 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough 265 

3.  THE  POETS  OP  ART 269 

The  ^Esthetic  Reaction 269 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 271 

William  Morris          .        .        .        .         .        .274 

Algernon  Charles  Swinburne         ....  278 

4.  TENNYSON  AND  "!N  MEMORIAM"      .        .        .      281 

The  Modern  Soul 281 

The  Modem  Method 284 

The  Venture  of  Faith 290 

5.  DECADENCE  OR  PROMISE  ? 292 

VII.  THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT  .        .        .297 

1.  THE  VISION  ATTAINED 297 

2.  THE  FAITH  OF  THE  POETS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  301 

Verse  Contemplative 301 

The  Contemplation  of  Nature  .  .  .  .306 
Nature  the  Shadow  of  God  ....  309 
The  Spirit  the  Life-Giver 315 

3.  THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS      .        .      317 

Verse  Militant 317 

The  Analysis  of  Man 319 

The  Conquest  of  Immortality  ....  321 
The  Cry  for  Redemption  .  .  .  .327 
Christ  the  Revealer 332 

4.  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  SPIRIT    ....      341 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE    SPIRIT   IN   THE 
MODERN  ENGLISH  POETS 


INTRODUCTION 

A  GREAT  poetry  has  accompanied  our  century 
of  swift  development  in  thought  and  deed.  Only 
within  the  last  decade  has  it  sunk  into  silence, 
with  the  death  of  Tennyson  and  Browning.  Swin- 
burne and  Morris,  our  only  surviving  poets,  have 
nothing  new  to  say;  no  younger  men  are  rising 
to  take  the  vacant  places.  So  far  as  we  can  tell, 
the  story  of  our  modern  English  song  is  ended. 

That  the  hush  which  has  fallen  upon  us  precedes 
a  new  creation,  who  can  doubt?  Our  poetry 
has  known  a  full  development ;  but  our  prose  in- 
creases every  year  in  volume  and  power,  and  its 
story  is  just  begun.  It  is  feeling  its  way  in  the 
dubious  region  of  social  experiment  and  applied 
democracy,  and  the  way  is  hard  to  find.  Modern 
poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  occupied  rather 
with  spiritual  life  than  social  problem ;  and  the 
whole  spiritual  epoch  which  lies  behind  us  finds,  in 
its  progress  towards  peace,  full  record  in  our  verse. 

The  poetry  of  the  revolution  beheld  ideals ;  Vic- 
torian poetry  has  tested  them.  We  have  now 
both  vision  and  knowledge.  The  unrealized  glory 
of  life  spiritual  and  social  has  been  shown  to  us ; 


2  INTRODUCTION 

ours,  too,  is  experience  in  the  wide  world  of  outer 
fact  and  the  adventures  of  the  inner  life.  Our 
early  poets  chanted  the  love  of  freedom,  of  nature, 
and  of  man ;  the  Victorian  age  has  given  us  a 
maturer  poetry,  thought-freighted,  and  of  melody 
less  divine.  Yet  the  poets  of  doubt  in  these  lat- 
ter days  have  gleaned  what  beauty  may  be  found 
in  that  wan  country,  and  while  poets  of  art  have 
sought  escape  from  the  lassitude  of  ideas,  poets 
of  faith  have  sung  to  us  the  triumph  of  the  soul. 

Great  powers  have  guided  the  movement  of 
modern  song  ;  science,  democracy,  and  the  power 
of  the  historic  past. 

The  first  to  be  noted  jsjscience.;  for  no  other 
stirs  so  subtly  in  the  secret  life  of  poetry.  Its 
intuitions  have  led  the  imagination  to  a  new  free- 
dom, widening  scope  yet  accentuating  law.  More 
obvious  than  science,  the  power  of  democracy 
hardly  needs  emphasis;  it  shaped  the  dreams  of 
our  youth,  as  it  controls  the  strife  of  our  prime. 
In  the  poetic  history  of  Wordsworth,  sanest  of 
our  poets,  we  may  trace  a  prophecy  of  the  full 
sequence  of  its  power  over  modern  men.  But  it 
would  be  shame  to  know  by  inference  and  record 
only  the  glorious  faith  which  has  given  impetus 
alike  to  labor  and  to  song.  In  Wordsworth,  the 
sober  movement  of  democracy  is  preserved  for  us : 
in  Shelley,  its  first  spiritual  and  social  ideals.  To 
place  these  beside  the  ideals  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
to  compare  Dante  and  Shelley,  will  show  us  the 
strength  and  weakness,  the  promise  and  danger, 
inherent  in  the  revolution? 


INTRODUCTION  3 

It  is  not  only  new  forces,  or  forces  in  a  novel 
guise,  that  have  formed  our  poetry.  We  are  knit 
to  the  past,  and  our  spiritual  restlessness  no  less 
than  our  accentuation  of  learning  impel  us  to  study 
its  message  more  intelligently  than  any  other  time 
has  studied  it,  and  to  seek  its  shelter  more  ear- 
nestly. The  movement  towards  the  past  begins 
in  the  poetry  of  the  revolution:  but  it  finds  full 
sweep  only  in  the  age  of  Victoria.  Advancing, 
then,  we  find  democracy  no  longer  a  dream  but 
an  attitude.  Its  influence  has  become  indirect; 
would  we  know  where  it  is  leading,  we  must  watch 
the  new  method  of  realism  and  note  the  new  accent 
on  character.  This  accent  and  method  find  full- 
est scope  in  the  naturalistic  and  humorous  work 
of  Browning. 

Science,  democracy,  and  the  past  are  the  guides 
of  modern  poetry ;  but  the  knowledge  of  truth  is 
its  goal.  In  the  Victorian  age,  it  first  becomes 
fully  conscious  of  its  quest,  and  its  different  stages 
may  clearly  be  studied.  We  may  be  led  to  doubt, 
in  reading,  this  sad  poetry  of  search,  whether  the 
goal  is  ever  to  be  won.  Yet,  having  followed  the 
quest,  we  behold  the  vision  at  last,  and,  standing 
on  the  Delectable  Mountains,  learn  what  the  poets 
of  our  great  epoch  in  its  two  periods  have  dis- 
cerned of  the  Celestial  City. 

Let  us  study,  then,  the  influence  of  science  in 
all  our  poets;  the  new  democracy,  especially  in 
Wordsworth;  the  early  religious  and  social  ideals, 
especially  in  Shelley ;  the  power  of  the  past  in  the 
poetry  of  reversion;  the^power  of  the  present  in 


'4  INTRODUCTION 

the  ironic  art  of  Browning;  the  poetry  of  reli- 
gious inquiry  in  its  various  phases ;  and  finally  the 
outlook  of  faith.  So  studying,  we  shall  come  to 
feel  that  the  poetry  of  our  age  has  a  vital  unity, 
and  witnesses  to  an  advance  of  the  spirit,  straight 
as  the  logic  of  experience,  from  doubt  to  faith  and 
cheer. 


SCIENCE   AND   THE   MODERN   POETS 

1.   The  Might  of  Science 

DEMOCRACY  and  Science  have  been  the  peculiar 
master-forces  of  our  poetic  growth.  They  have 
shaped  the  course  of  thought  and  imagi-  Democracy, 

.  .  _  .    1        Science,  and 

nation  during  that  great  period  which,  Art. 
with  unkind  disregard  for  the  labor  in  name-hunt- 
ing entailed  on  posterity,  we  call  for  the  present 
the  modern  age.  To  understand  our  poetry  even 
a  little,  we  must  watch  for  the  lines  which  mani- 
fest their  control. 

Which  force  is  the  greater,  none  can  say;  but 
one  alone  can  be  studied  in  its  completeness.  For 
democracy  with  all  its  might  is  yet  in  its  child- 
hood. The  political  revolution  may  be  accom- 
plished; the  social  revolution  is  of  the  future, 
dimly  foreseen  by  many  a  prophet,  clearly  fore- 
told by  none.  But  if  the  true  social  revolution  be 
a  thing  of  the  future,  the  scientific  revolution  is 
assuredly  a  thing  of  the  past.  That  the  exclusive 
power  of  scientific  thought  has  passed  its  prime, 
is  evidenced  by  our  present  reaction  towards  mys- 
ticism ;  a  reaction  signaled  by  friends  and  foes 
alike,  with  amazed  regret  by  M.  Zola  and  the 
friends  of  the  knowable,  with  hope  almost  equally 
amazed  by  the  votaries  of  the  Unseen,  in  art  and 


6        SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

faith.  For  almost  half  a  century,  scientific  con- 
ceptions were  intellectually  supreme.  They  are 
so  no  longer.  The  influence  of  these  conceptions 
on  our  poetry  is  then  of  primary  interest,  since 
they  have  had,  in  a  sense,  their  perfect  work. 

Looking  past  the  reaction  which  has  just  set  in, 
we  can  easily  see  that  Science,  or  rather  the  image 
of  life  which  it  introduced,  has  been  the  great 
protagonist  of  the  century.  Science  and  Religion ! 
In  their  intercourse  has  centred  the  chief  drama 
of  the  modern  world.  Fragments  of  their  impas- 
sioned dialogue  have  filled  the  air,  wafted  to  us 
from  pulpit  and  platform,  from  books  of  the  hour 
or  from  popular  magazine.  Which  is  the  vic- 
tor? However  we  may  answer,  the  contest  is 
quieted  to-day.  If  not  settled,  it  has  at  least 
retired  into  the  background,  there  to  hold  urbane 
and  respectable  fellowship  with  the  discussion  be- 
tween Fate  and  Freewill.  Meanwhile  through  all 
the  century  has  run  a  sub-action,  brighter  and 
more  serene,  yet  with  crises  of  its  own,  —  a 
Benedick  and  Beatrice  affair,  of  quips  and  co- 
quetry and  slurs,  of  seeming  antagonism  conceal- 
ing perhaps,  as  in  Shakespeare's  joyous,  immor- 
tal lovers,  depth  of  real  attraction  unconfessed. 
Science  and  Art!  What  of  their  intercourse? 
Seeming  foes,  who  cannot  meet  without  flouting 
—  shall  the  outcome  of  their  converse  be  separa- 
tion, marriage,  or  death? 

All  sorts  of  people  give  all  sorts  of  answers. 
Some,  like  M.  Zola,  claim  that  the  art  of  the  future 
will  be  a  branch  of  science,  that  it  will  be  absorbed 


THE  MIGHT  OF  SCIENCE  7 

in  the  demonstrable  Fact,  and  will  record  path- 
ological and  physical  conditions  delicately  as  a 
sensitive  machine.  They  cry  aloud  with  Whit- 
man:— 

"  The  e*tui  of  surgical  instruments,  and  the  e*tui  of  oculist's  or 
aurist's  instruments  or  dentist's  instruments, 

The  cylinder-press,  the  hand-press,  the  frisket  and  tympan,  the 
compositor's  stick  and  rule, 

In  them  your  themes  and  hints  and  provokers  : 

*  If  not,  the  whole  earth  has  no  themes  or  hints  or  provokers,  — 
and  never  had.'  " 

Many  a  thinker,  on  the  other  hand,  shudders 
at  this  flaunting  claim.  The  critics  cry  in  sorrow 
of  spirit  that  no  age  of  science  can  be  an  age  of 
song.  Again  and  again  we  have  been  told  that 
as  science  comes  to  dominate  the  present,  art  will 
become  a  memory  of  the  past. 

We  stand  to-day  on  the  limit-line  of  two  centu- 
ries. Looking  back,  we  can  appeal  not  to  theory 
but  to  experience.  And  in  this  vexed  dispute, 
experience  gives  no  doubtful  answer.  To  the  sci- 
entist the  earth  must  forever  roll  around  the  cen- 
tral solar  fire;  to  the  poet  the  sun  must  forever  set 
behind  the  western  hills;  yet  science  and  poetry 
are  friends,  not  foes;  the  nature  of  one  passes 
into  the  very  being  of  the  other.  The  scientist 
seeks  truth  to  widen  knowledge,  the  poet  to  quicken 
life.  We  have  a  Dalton,  we  have  a  Shelley,  we 
have  a  Darwin,  we  have  a  Browning.  Above  the 
din  of  machinery  and  the  buzz  of  analysis  there 
floats  upward  an  unceasing  music;  and  we  say 
with  exultation  that  the  century  of  science  has 
been  also  a  century  of  song>^sE  L1BR^> 

f      ~V         OF  THE 

•UNIVERSITY; 

^ 


8        SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

Yet  the  song  of  the  age  of  science  finds  in 
surgical  instrument  or  physiological  experiment 
Evolution  neither  theme  nor  provoker.  Art  must 

Theme,  f orever  breathe  the  air  of  mystery ;  and 
if  science,  as  Zola  claims,  destroys  mystery,  it 
must  also  destroy  song.  But  in  truth  science, 
pressing  out  as  victor  among  the  world's  secrets, 
reveals  them  while  it  invades.  Extending  the 
limits  of  our  knowledge,  it  extends  also  our  per- 
ception of  that  vast  outlying  country  where  light 
and  darkness  blend,  and  the  hidden  Infinite  im- 
pinges on  the  human  and  the  known.  Art  has 
never  so  reverently  recognized,  as  in  this  day  of 
science,  that  the  eternal  facts  with  which  it  deals 
—  man  in  the  presence  of  God,  of  Nature,  of  his 
own  soul  —  are  eternal  mystery. 

Long  before  the  marvels  of  our  modern  time, 
Wordsworth  uttered  a  remarkable  prophecy. 
"  The  man  of  Science,"  he  wrote,  "seeks  truth  as 
a  remote  and  unknown  benefactor;  he  cherishes 
and  loves  it  in  his  solitude.  The  poet,  singing  a 
song  in  which  all  human  beings  join  with  him, 
rejoices  in  the  presence  of  truth  as  our  visible 
friend  and  hourly  companion.  Poetry  is  the 
breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge ;  it  is  the 
impassioned  expression  which  is  on  the  counte- 
nance of  Science.  ...  If  the  labours  of  men  of 
science  should  ever  create  any  material  revolution, 
direct  or  indirect,  in  our  condition,  and  in  the 
impressions  which  we  habitually  receive,  the  poet 
will  sleep  then  no  more  than  at  present ;  he  will  be 
ready  to  follow  the  steps  of  the  man  of  science, 


THE  MIGHT  OF  SCIENCE  9 

not  only  in  these  general  indirect  effects,  but  he 
will  be  at  his  side,  carrying  sensation  into  the 
midst  of  the  objects  of  science  itself.  The  re- 
motest discoveries  of  the  Chemist,  the  Botanist, 
the  Mineralogist,  will  be  as  proper  objects  of  the 
poet's  art  as  any  upon  which  it  can  be  employed, 
if  the  time  should  ever  come  when  these  things 
shall  be  familiar  to  us,  and  the  relations  under 
which  they  are  contemplated  by  the  followers  of 
their  respective  sciences  shall  be  manifestly  and 
palpably  material  to  us  as  enjoying  and  suffering 
beings.  If  the  time  should  ever  come  when  what 
is  now  called  science,  thus  familiarized  to  men, 
shall  be  ready  to  put  on  as  it  were  a  form  of  flesh 
and  blood,  the  poet  will  lend  his  divine  spirit  to 
aid  the  transfiguration,  and  will  welcome  the 
Being  thus  produced  as  a  dear  and  genuine  inmate 
of  the  household  of  man." 

The  noble  prophecy  has  been  nobly  fulfilled. 
"Carrying  sensation  into  the  midst  of  the  objects 
of  science  themselves,"  the  poets  have  made  the 
great  conceptions  of  modern  science  "dear  and 
familiar  inmates  of  the  household  of  man."  Their 
delicate  use  of  scientific  detail  is  no  less  marked 
than  their  superb  rendering  of  scientific  general- 
izations. It  is  of  course  the  wide  vision  of  evolu- 
tion that  chiefly  kindles  their  spirits.  Nor  need 
we  wonder  if  some  of  the  noblest  songs  of  triumph 
were  chanted  before  science  had  uttered  her  know- 
ledge aloud.  For  the  imagination  is  ever  pro- 
phetic ;  and  if  science  opens  the  road  to  the  poet, 
it  is  no  less  true  that  the  poet  again  and  again 


10     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

opens  the  road  to  science.  It  seems  as  if  every 
new  thought  stirred  long  in  the  unconscious  soul 
of  the  race,  and  it  were  matter  of  indifference 
whether  poetry  or  science  first  found  the  spoken 
word. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  chief  poetic  passages 
which  treat  directly  the  modern  evolutionary  con- 
ception are  really  prophetic,  written  before  the 
new  creed  was  fairly  spoken.  There  are  three 
great  modern  passages  dealing  with  the  universe 
as  a  whole  in  relation  to  man:  the  second  and 
fourth  act  of  Shelley's  "Prometheus  Unbound," 
written  in  1819;  the  lines  in  the  last  act  of  Brown- 
ing's "Paracelsus,"  written  in  1833;  and  cantos 
fifty-four  to  fifty-six,  and  one  hundred  and  eigh- 
teen, in  Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam,"  published  in 
1850.  "The  Origin  of  Species  "  was  not  published 
till  1859,  yet  every  one  of  these  passages  ex- 
presses a  clear  conception  of  evolution  as  distinct 
from  the  then  current  idea  of  spasmodic  and  spe- 
cial creations.  x 

In  the  bewildering  second  act  of  the  "Prome- 
theus Unbound,"  the  thought  is  rather  Hegelian 
than  Darwinian.  It  is  the  vision  of  a  spiritual 
evolution,  gradually  informing  the  unconscious 
universe  with  conscious  life  and  love.  In  the 
fourth  act,  the  radiant  colloquy  between  earth  and 
moon  renders  with  unparalleled  grandeur  the  full 
cosmic  conception  of  the  starry  universe,  and  suc- 
ceeds, with  even  more  freedom  from  anthropomor- 
phism than  Goethe  in  the  Prologue  to  Faust,  in 
giving  a  voice  to  pure  inorganic  Being.  It  is  with 


THE  MIGHT  OF  SCIENCE  11 

superb  rush  and  sweep  that  the  earth  predicts  the 
final  victories  of  Science :  — 

"  And  the  abyss  shouts  from  her  depth  laid  bare, 
Heaven,  hast  them  secrets  ?     Man  unveils  me  ;  I  have  none." 

The  famous  passage  in  Act  V.  of  "Paracelsus," 
more  distinct  in  its  statement  of  natural,  physical 
evolution,  is  also  deeply  religious,  with  a  high 
Christian  Pantheism. 

"  The  centre-fire  heaves  underneath  the  earth, 
And  the  earth  changes  like  a  human  face. 

.  .  .  Thus  God  dwells  in  all, 
From  life's  minute  beginnings,  up  at  last 
To  man,  the  consummation  of  this  scheme 
Of  being,  the  completion  of  this  sphere 
Of  life  :  whose  attributes  had  here  and  there 
Been  scattered  o'er  the  visible  world  before, 
Asking  to  be  combined  —  dim  fragments  meant 
To  be  united  in  some  wondrous  whole, 
Imperfect  qualities  throughout  creation, 
Suggesting  some  one  6reature  yet  to  make  — 
Some  point  where  all  those  scattered  rays  should  meet, 
Convergent  in  the  faculties  of  man. 

"  Hints  and  previsions  of  which  faculties 
Are  strewn  confusedly  everywhere  about 
The  inferior  natures ;  and  all  lead  up  higher, 
All  shape  out  dimly  the  superior  race, 
The  heir  of  hopes  too  fair  to  turn  out  false, 
And  Man  appears  at  last :  so  far  the  seal 
Is  put  on  life  ;  one  stage  of  being  complete, 
One  scheme  wound  up  ;  and  from  the  grand  result 
A  supplementary  reflux  of  light 
Illustrates  all  the  inferior  grades,  explains 
Each  back  step  in  the  circle." 

But  Tennyson  alone,  writing  nearer  to  the  time 
when  the  new  idea  was  definitely  formulated  for 
the  public,  has  grasped  the  full  Darwinian  concep- 


12     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

tion.  He  passes,  in  the  first  phase  of  his  intellec- 
tual agony,  under  that  brief  shadow  of  horror  lest 
matter  be  all  and  spirit  naught  which  the  new 
science  cast  at  first  over  the  soul.  The  terrible 
indifference  of  Nature  casts  shudder  and  chill  over 
his  warm,  blind  trust :  — 

"  She  cries,  t  A  thousand  types  are  gone,  — 
I  care  for  nothing,  all  shall  go/  " 

Later,  when  a  great  moral  victory  has  been 
won,  the  intuition  of  a  universe  informed  with 
God  and  moving  towards  a  divine  though  far-off 
event  is  vouchsafed  to  the  poet;  and  in  the  one 
hundred  and  eighteenth  canto  he  sums  up  with 
marvelous  conciseness  the  strict  creed  of  evolution, 
interpreting  it  in  the  light  of  immortality  and  of 
God.  It  is  in  these  bitter  cantos  of  conflict  be- 
tween natural  law  and  the  mystery  of  immortal 
love  that  the  direct  convictions  of  science  find 
their  most  interesting  treatment  in  our  modern 
verse.  And  it  is  in  such  poetry  as  this  that  we 
must  look  for  the  real  use  of  science  by  the  modern 
imagination;  not  in  Whitman's  triumphant  dis- 
play of  raw  material,  nor  in  Zola's  translation  of 
life  into  physical  terms. 

But  the  union  of  poet  and  scientist  has  gone 
Evolution  even  farther  than  Wordsworth  foresaw. 

as  Infl.u- 

ence.  Not  only  has  poetry  invaded  science,  and 

carried  away  new  themes  of  cosmic  scope ;  science 
has  invaded  poetry.  Passages  treating  directly  of 
scientific  subjects  are  rare  in  our  poets,  little  holi- 
day trips  of  the  imagination,  as  it  were,  into  foreign 


THE  MIGHT  OF  SCIENCE  13 

lands.  Yet  we  have  hardly  a  modern  poem,  what- 
ever its  subject,  not  thrilled  through  and  through 
and  modified  in  its  very  fibre  by  consciousness  of 
the  great  Law  of  Evolution. 

Would  we  trace  the  power  of  this  consciousness, 
we  have  only  to  turn  to  our  older  literature  and 
note  the  effect  of  its  absence.  Before  the  day 
of  Wordsworth,  the  idea  of  cosmic  evolution  is, 
speaking  broadly,  unknown  to  poetry.  The  uni- 
verse is  stationary,  except  for  surface  vibration. 
Spenser,  who  more  than  any  other  English  poet 
loved  cosmic  speculation,  gives  us  in  his  fine  frag- 
ment of  "  Mutabilitee "  the  characteristic  view. 
The  Titaness,  arrogant  and  superb,  claims  the 
world  for  her  own,  but,  despite  countless  witnesses 
and  brilliant  argument,  is  condemned  by  Nature 
in  significant  lines :  — 

"  I  well  consider  all  that  ye  have  said, 
And  find  that  all  things  steadfastness  do  hate, 
And  changed  be  ;  yet,  being  rightly  wayd, 
They  are  not  changed  from  their  first  estate, 
But  by  their  change  their  being  do  dilate, 
And,  turning  to  themselves  at  length  againe, 
Do  work  their  own  salvation  so  by  Fate. 
Then  over  them  change  doth  not  rule  and  reigne, 
But  they  rule  over  change,  and  do  their  states  maintain." 

"Turning  to  themselves  againe."  Eest,  not 
onward  movement,  is  the  deepest  law  of  nature 
and  of  life.  The  conception  of  a  progressive  evo- 
lution had  not  dawned;  it  was  not  to  dawn  for 
centuries. 

It  was  in  the  French  Revolution  that  the  idea 
of  Progress  entered.  Conceived  with  defiant  vio- 


14    SCIENCE  AND    THE  MODERN  POETS 

lence,  it  is  quite  unscientific,  and  applied  not  to 
nature  but  to  the  narrow  sphere  of  human  history. 
The  writers  of  the  revolution  brandish  the  idea 
as  a  flag,  claim  it  vehemently  as  a  right,  but  fail 
to  recognize  it  serenely  as  a  fact.  Even  Shelley 
never  divests  himself  of  the  belief  that  redemption 
is  to  be  achieved  by  a  violent  and  sudden  over- 
throw of  evil;  his  beautiful  evolutionary  philoso- 
phy is,  as  we  have  seen,  mystically  rather  than 
materially  conceived.  It  is  with  the  Victorian 
age  that  the  conception  of  progress,  ceasing  to  be 
emotional  and  political,  became  purely  scientific. 
The  latent  idea  swiftly  grew  to  be  the  governing 
principle  of  art  and  life.  We  must  leave  the  use 
of  science  as  Subject;  we  must  trace  its  value  as 
Influence.  To  this  influence  is  due  the  one  dis- 
tinctive modern  tone,  common  to  all  our  poets 
from  Wordsworth  to  Swinburne.  Our  poetry  of 
character,  of  nature,  and  of  thought  is  shaped  by 
it;  its  message,  whatever  the  future  may  bring, 
has  for  our  generation  sunk  below  the  region  of 
conviction  to  that  of  intuition,  and  while  convic- 
tions are  of  slight  value  to  the  imagination,  intui- 
tions are  ever  vital. 


2.   The  Force-Idea 

The  idea  of  a  purposeful  force  at  the  heart  of 
Force  m  the  world  is  the  centre  of  evolutionary 
of  Nature,  thought;  and  it  has  transfigured  poetry. 
Nowhere  is  its  potency  more  manifest  than  in  that 


THE  FORCE-IDEA  15 

worshipful  Liturgy  of  Nature  chanted  for  the  first 
time  by  the  modern  English  poets. 

Despite  the  blitheness  of  Dan  Chaucer  and 
many  a  gay  little  lilt  of  spring  and  blossom,  our 
older  English  poetry,  meditating  on  nature,  is 
characteristically  sad.  "All  fairest  things  are 
doomed  to  swiftest  death,"  seems  its  murmured 
burden.  A  deep  horror  of  change  rests  upon  it; 
of  change,  the  symbol  of  decay,  the  messenger  of 
Death.  Spenser's  "Mutabilitee,"  superb  and  ter- 
rible, is  foe  to  gods  and  men.  Very  characteris- 
tic is  the  pathetic  note  struck  again  and  again  by 
Shakespeare  in  the  Sonnets :  — 

"  When  I  have  seen  the  hungry  ocean  gain 
Advantage  on  the  kingdom  of  the  shore, 
And  the  firm  soil  win  of  the  watery  main 
Increasing  store  with  loss,  and  loss  with  store, 

This  thought  is  as  a  death,  which  cannot  choose 
But  weep  to  have  that  which  it  fears  to  lose."  * 

To  us  moderns,  the  deeper  meditation  on  Nature 
brings  joy,  not  pain.  For  we  have  learned  to 
recognize  beneath  her  ceaseless  ebb  and  flow,  so 
often  seemingly  cruel,  a  steady  onward  movement 
towards  fullness  of  life  unguessed.  In  the  light  of 
science,  change  has  become  the  symbol,  no  longer 
of  decay  but  of  promise.  Feared  once  as  the  mes- 
senger of  despair  it  now  is  hailed  as  messenger  of 
hope,  for  we  know  it  as  the  proof  of  perpetuity  of 
life,  through  varying  forms.  Shelley  may  heave  a 
superficial  and  wistful  sigh  over  the  fading  glories 

1  Sonnet  LXIV. 


16     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

of  sunset,  or  music  dying  as  it  is  born;  it  is  with 
deeper  exultation  that  he  cries :  — 

"  Worlds  on  worlds  are  rolling  ever 

From  creation  to  decay, 
Like  the  bubbles  on  a  river, 

Trembling,  hasting,  borne  away."  * 

The  storms  of  Autumn  are  to  his  singing  soul, 

"  The  trumpet  of  a  prophecy :  0  Wind, 

If  Winter  come,  can  Spring  be  far  behind  ?  "  2 

As  the  century  goes  on,  the  new  note  of  triumph 
in  transition  grows  ever  clearer  and  sweeter.  In 
the  hour  of  spiritual  victory  Tennyson  exclaims :  — 

"  There  rolls  the  deep  where  grew  the  tree. 
O  earth,  what  changes  hast  thou  seen  ! 
There,  where  the  long  street  roars,  hath  been 
The  stillness  of  the  central  sea. 

"  The  hills  are  shadows,  and  they  flow 

From  form  to  form,  and  nothing  stands  ; 
They  melt  like  mist,  the  solid  lands, 
Like  clouds  they  shape  themselves  and  go."  8 

The  "hungry  ocean"  with  its  "advantage  o'er  the 
kingdom  of  the  shore  "  thus  brings  a  new  message. 
With  faith  in  evolution,  nature  becomes  not  a  re- 
minder of  mortality  but  a  witness  to  the  Eternal. 

The  new  conception  has  even  a  more  vivid  effect 
on  the  aesthetic  than  on  the  ethical  treatment  of 
nature.  Motion,  of  course,  is  present  in  nature- 
poetry  from  the  beginning.  The  play  of  day  and 
night,  of  storm  and  calm,  have  ever  caught  the 
poet's  eye.  But  the  simple  changes  noted  bear 

1  Chorus  to  Hellas.  2  Ode  to  the  West  Wind. 

8  In  Memoriam,  Canto  CXXIII. 


THE  FORCE-IDEA  17 

no  relation  to  an  underlying  energy,  and  the  im- 
agination supremely  loves  repose.  In  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  or  the  Renaissance,  a  landscape,  to  be 
lovely,  must  be  still.  The  religious  landscapes 
of  all  early  art  are  motionless;  only  the  faintest  of 
breezes  is  allowed  in  Dante's  Earthly  Paradise. 
Thus  also  Spenser,  following  Tasso  and  Ariosto, 
in  the  Garden  of  Acrasia :  — 

"  Thereto  the  heavens,  always  jovial, 

Look't  on  them  lovely,  still  in  steadfast  state, 
Ne  suffered  storm  nor  frost  on  them  to  fall 
Their  tender  buds  and  leaves  to  violate."  * 

To  a  much  later  time,  the  treatment  remained 
pictorial,  and  nature  was  a  silent  panorama.  The 
poems  of  Cowper,  Thompson,  and  Gray  are  a 
complete  gallery,  from  which  we  may  take  down 
one  detached  picture  after  another.  That  in  the 
evanescence  of  beauty  and  the  swift  passage  from 
glory  to  glory  lies  nature's  charm,  was  a  hidden 
secret. 

Sunrise  and  sunset  are  as  a  rule  treated  con- 
ventionally, from  Chaucer  to  Gray,  though  one 
pauses  at  the  assertion,  remembering  the  approach 
of  Milton's  "Still  Evening,"  the  "light  thickens" 
of  Macbeth,  and  Fletcher's  exquisite  bit:  — 

"  Now  the  day  begins  to  break, 
And  the  light  shoots  like  a  streak 
Of  subtle  fire  "  — 

But  the  generalization  is  true,  as,  such  things  go. 
It  is  Jiard  to  conceive  a  poet  who  had  steeped  his 
soul  in  the  joy  of  the  dawn,  confining  himself  to 

1  The  Faerie  Queene,  II.  12,  st.  51. 


18       SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

the  car  of  Phoebus  or  the  rosy  fingers  of  Aurora. 
Yet  Chaucer  does  not  describe  such  moments  in  the 
natural  method,  nor  is  he  drawn  to  them.  No; 
the  early  morning,  when  matters  are  settled,  when 
we  are  sure  of  a  number  of  hours  of  good,  steady 
daylight,  is  the  time  he  loves.  Even  when  the 
idea  of  motion  would  seem  to  be  inherent  in  the 
object  described,  he  evades  it.  His  delight  in 
the  fresh  country  is  summed  up  in  his  love  for 
his  favorite  "briddes."  Allusions  to  them  are 
constant  in  his  poems;  but  for  all  that  he  gives 
of  their  airiness  and  lightness,  these  winged  spirits 
of  the  breeze  incarnate  might  just  as  well  be  little 
birds  of  wood.  They  sit  on  branches  and  converse 
politely ;  they  do  not  fly,  they  simply  change  their 
position ;  one  is  sure  that  they  would  settle  with  a 
thud.  Never  once,  so  far  as  I  know,  does  Chaucer 
note  the  characteristic  flight  of  a  bird.  He  dis- 
tinguishes them  otherwise :  — 

"  The  swalow,  murderer  of  the  bees  small, 
That  xnaken  honie  of  flowers  fresh  of  hew ; 
The  wedded  turtle,  with  his  feathers  true, 
The  phesaunt,  scorner  of  the  rocks  by  night."  1 

We  can  hardly  estimate  the  distance  between 
Canace's  Falcon,  with  her  debonair  talk,  and 
Wordsworth's  little  "Green  Linnet,"  that  "bro- 
ther of  the  dancing  leaves,"  — 

"  Amid  that  tuft  of  hazel-trees, 
Where  the  flutter  of  his  wings 
Upon  his  back  and  body  flings 
Shadows  and  sunny  glimmerings 
That  cover  him  all  over." 

1  The  Parlement  of  Foules,  Stanza  li. 


THE  FORCE-IDEA  19 

We  have  a  long  road  to  travel  before  we  shall 
reach  this  dainty  appreciation  of  the  charm  of  a 
perpetual  quiver.  Even  as  late  as  Milton  there 
is  still  an  utter  deadness  and  fixedness  in  all  delin- 
eations of  nature.  What  a  magnificent  oppor- 
tunity for  describing  the  gradual  dawn  of  living 
beauty  was  in  the  hands  of  the  man  who  did  not 
hesitate  to  write  poetry  about  the  creation !  Does 
he  avail  himself  of  it?  Does  he  give  us  any  sug- 
gestion of  the  tender  grace  of  the  young,  won- 
dering world,  the  slow  awakening  and  unfolding 
of  all  fair  things  till  they  reach  the  perfection  of 
their  loveliness?  Oh  no!  There  is  chaos,  void, 
abyss,  emptiness.  We  wait  ancL  watch.  Sud- 
denly —  hey !  presto !  The  world  is  made.  There 
it  whirls,* —  round,  smooth,  neatly  finished.  There 
are  the  oceans  with  the  fishes,  the  mountains,  the 
trees,  yes,  and  the  flowers  and  beasts :  — 

'*  Forth  flourished  thick  the  clust'ring  vine,  forth  crept 
The  swelling  gourd,  up  stood  the  corny  reed, 
Embattled  in  her  field,  and  th'  humble  shrub, 
And  bush,  with  frizzled  hair  implicit."  1 

It  is  all  in  admirable /order,  ready  for  use. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  we  begin  to  note  a  curi- 
ous change.  A  pseudo-scientific  spirit  appears.  It 
treats  mechanically  various  truths  which  our  own 
time  was  to  render  spiritually;  and  among  these 
truths,  it  grasps  with  especial  clearness  that  of  the 
unceasing  activity  pervading  nature.  But  how 
trivial  is  the  'apprehension  of  the  principle  and  its 
scope !  Listen  to  Cowper  as  he  tells  us :  — 
1  Paradise  Lost,  VII.  320-323. 


20      SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

"  Constant  rotation  of  th'  unwearied  wheel 
That  nature  rides  upon,  maintains  her  health, 
Her  beauty,  her  fertility."  1 

And  a  little  later,  with  true  scientific  accuracy, — 

"  Its  own  revolvency  upholds  the  world." 

What  use  does  he  make  of  this  great  principle, 
which  he  has  thus  for  the  first  time  recognized  in 
poetry?  He  employs  it  as  an  argument  to  induce 
lazy  people  to  take  a  brisk  walk  after  dinner. 

Then  dawns  our  own  century;  and,  with  a 
transition  so  abrupt  as  to  be  hardly  recognizable, 
comes  a  radical  change.  The  truth  of  universal 
force  is  recognized  by  science  as  a  physical  fact ; 
it  becomes  in  poetry  a  spiritual  law.  It  follows 
that  the  delight  of  the  poets  centres  no  longer  in 
permanent  scenes,  but  dwells  rather  on  those  con- 
stantly shifting  and  successive  manifestations  of 
power  which  forever  struggle  to  shadow  forth  to 
us  the  ideal  beauty  that  lies  beyond  our  senses' 
ken.  The  old  style  of  dry  enumeration  vanishes; 
the  sadness  of  decay  is  recognized  as  the  necessary 
condition  of  the  law  of  growth ;  and  the  treatment 
of  nature,  which  had  been  purely  pictorial,  be- 
comes akin  to  another  art,  —  the  art  of  the  musi- 
cian. As  the  essence  of  music  lies  in  change,  and 
the  chord,  indefinitely  prolonged,  would  be  no 
music  at  all,  so  it  seems  to  us  with  the  deeper 
harmony  of  the  life  of  the  world.  It  is  curious  to 
see  how  this  love  for  transition  as  distinguished 
from  permanence  pervades  nearly  every  allusion 
1  The  Task,  I.  368-370. 


XTNIVBRSITT 


THE  FORCE-IDEA  21 

to  nature  in  our  modern  poetry.  The  power  deli- 
cately to  seize  fleeting  effects,  elusive  phases  of 
beauty,  —  is  not  this  what  lends  interest  for  us  to 
a  poet's  work?  Not  the  moments  when  the  beauty 
is  fixed,  but  those  when  it  is  fugitive,  are  the 
favorites  of  our  poets.  Listen  for  a  moment  to 
this  description  in  "The  Sunset:"  — 

"  There  now  the  sun  had  set,  but  lines  of  gold 
Hung-  on  the  ashen  clouds,  and  on  the  points 
Of  the  far  level  grass  and  nodding  flowers, 
And  the  old  dandelion's  hoary  head, 
And  mingled  with  the  shades  of  evening,  lay 
On  the  brown  massy  wood  ;  and  in  the  East 
The  broad  and  burning  moon  lingeringly  rose 
Between  the  black  trunks  of  the  farthest  trees, 
While  the  faint  stars  were  gathering  overhead." 

See  how  evanescent  is  the  moment  which  the 
poet  has  chosen  to  depict.  Another  instant  and 
the  gold  will  have  faded  from  the  dun  soft  clouds, 
and  the  moon  have  risen  above  the  treetops.  See 
how  the  charm  of  the  scene  lies  in  the  tremulous 
sense  of  a  beauty  too  unearthly  to  linger,  the  ref- 
erence in  the  first  line  to  the  day  that  had  fled,  in 
the  last  to  the  gathering  night.  The  lines  are 
Shelley's;  and  more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  poet 
Shelley  is  steeped  in  this  sense  of  elastic  and 
never-resting  force.  He  turns  aside  with  impa- 
tience from  anything  fixed.  The  soaring  circle  of 
the  lark,  the  flowing  of  the  river,  the  drift  of  the 
cloud  across  the  sky,  the  onward  sweep  of  the  west 
wind,  —  these  are  the  aspects  on  which  he  con- 
stantly lingers.  Few  of  them,  indeed,  will  you 
find  emphasized  in  older  poetry.  Among  our 


22    SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

other  modern  poets  the  same  tendency  is  hardly 
less  marked.  The  revolution  in  temper  can  hardly 
be  measured  between  a  generation  perfectly  sat- 
isfied with  Milton's  mechanical  catalogues,  or 
Thompson's  stereotyped  and  isolated  studies,  and 
one  which  expresses  its  attitude  towards  nature  in 
such  a  poem  as  Wordsworth's  Lucy.  In  poets 
the  most  diverse  —  in  Tennyson,  Kossetti,  Kings- 
ley,  Emerson  —  we  find  the  same  delicate  vitality 
in  the  treatment  of  nature;  and  we  can  ascribe 
the  change  to  nothing  if  not  to  the  new  perception 
of  all  phenomena  as  alike  maintained  and  destroyed 
by  an  innate  principle  of  force. 

"  Uprose  the  merry  Sphinx, 
And  crouched  no  more  in  stone ; 
She  melted  into  purple  cloud, 
She  silvered  in  the  moon. 
She  spired  into  a  yellow  flame, 
She  flowered  in  hlossoms  red ; 
She  flowed  into  a  foaming  wave, 
She  stood  Monadnoc's  head."  1 

In  the  treatment  of  nature,  the  change  in- 
Force  in  the  duced  by  the  intuition  of  force  is  great ; 
character,  in  the  treatment  of  human  life,  it  is  still 
greater.  Clear,  living,  forcible  is  the  character 
delineation  in  the  old  romances.  The  description 
is  simple,  but  natures  were  simple  then ;  and  a  few 
swift  touches  may  give  us  more  than  a  whole 
analytical  novel. 

How  these  men  live  for  us !  Achilles,  the  im- 
petuous and  noble;  Ulysses,  the  wary  and  sad; 
Launcelot,  "meekest  man  and  the  gentlest  that 

1  Emerson :   The  Sphinx,  Stanza  xvi. 


THE  FORCE-IDEA  23 

ever  ate  in  hall  among  ladies ;  and  sternest  knight 
to  thy  mortal  foe  that  ever  put  spear  in  the  rest: " 
—  we  know  them  all,  as  we  know  the  man  we  talk 
to  in  the  horse-cars,  the  acquaintance  from  whom 
we  parted  last  night.  In  the  most  novel  of  novels 
you  shall  find  no  gallery  of  figures  that,  for  subtle 
humor,  for  kindly  yet  keen  discrimination,  shall 
exceed  old  Dan  Chaucer's  company  of  pilgrims. 
Yet  a  fundamental  difference  in  method  we  all 
perceive  between  the  "Morte  d' Arthur"  and  the 
"Idylls  of  the  King,"  between  the  "Prologue" 
and  the  "Ring  and  the  Book."  For  our  modern 
study  of  character  finds  its  interest  and  value  only 
as  it  traces  growth,  —  it  centres  in  the  idea  of 
development;  while  to  the  older  writers  this  idea 
is  completely  ignored.  With  them,  a  type,  once 
drawn,  is  unchangeable.  The  inevitable  progres- 
sion of  years  leaves  no  mark  even  on  the  outward 
man.  Helen  returns  to  the  home  she  had  left 
thirty  years  before,  still  calm  in  eternal  beauty; 
Palamon  and  A r cite,  an  indefinite  number  of 
"years  or  tweye  "  having  elapsed,  fight  for  Emelye 
with  all  the  ardor  of  youth.  Neither  is  there  any 
change  of  the  inner  nature.  Circumstances  may 
storm  and  rage  and  batter;  extremes  of  fortune 
succeed  each  other  with  startling  rapidity;  death 
threatens,  love  encircles,  power  crowns, — yet  the 
hero  remains  throughout  passive  and  unmoved;  as 
he  was  in  the  beginning,  so  he  emerges  at  the  end. 
Griselda  the  girl  receives  with  meek  brow  and 
folded  hands  the  summons  to  wed  her  feudal  lord ; 
with  meek  brow  and  folded  hands  Griselda  the 


24      SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

matron  welcomes  her  husband's  bride.  Years  have 
passed  by,  filled  with  strange  and  bitter  experi- 
ence ;  but  they  have  not  affected  her,  —  she  remains 
a  constant  quantity.  This  curious  subjective  im- 
mobility pervades  all  the  characters  of  fiction  and 
poetry  until  our  own  day.  Is  it  heretical  to  say 
that  even  in  Shakespeare  we  find  traces  of  its 
influence?  Do  we  ever  think  of  the  childhood  or 
youth  of  his  characters?  No  one  has  given  with 
equal  power  the  conflicting  passions  that  play 
about  the  central  point  of  individuality;  he  has 
not  shown  us  that  individuality  altered  in  its  very 
texture  through  the  action  of  some  great  moral 
force.  Shakespeare's  characters  may  break;  but 
they  never  yield,  and  through  yielding  grow.  But 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  our  great  master, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  application  of  this 
principle  in  more  recent  times.  The  novels  of 
fifty  years  ago  no  longer  interest  us.  Their  charm 
is  gone.  Is  it  not  because  they  lived  before  the 
dawn  of  this  new  day?  We  find  in  them  excellent 
pictures  of  still  life;  but  however  crowded  they 
may  be  with  adventure  and  even  with  action,  the 
springs  of  the  action  are  always  without  and  not 
within.  This  is  ^emphatically  true  of  the  repre- 
sentative novelist,  Scott.  There  is  much  clatter 
of  arms  in  his  stories,  much  hurrying  from  palace 
to  heath,  from  heath  to  dungeon;  but  through  it 
all  reigns  the  same  fixed  calm  of  characters  immu- 
table in  weakness  or  in  strength. 

Our  modern  character-literature  is  revolution- 
ized by  the   simple   introduction   of   the  growth- 


THE  FORCE-IDEA  25 

idea.  Perhaps  most  striking,  certainly  most  ex- 
tended, in  fiction,  the  vitality  of  the  idea  was  yet 
first  signaled  in  poetry.  For  surely  it  is  in  that 
enchanting  and  seemingly  uncaused  tenderness  for 
children,  that  startling,  exquisite  rendering  of 
babyhood  which  so  suddenly  appears  in  Blake  and 
Burns  and  Wordsworth,  that  we  trace  the  first 
intimation  of  our  modern  interest  in  beginnings. 
The  temper  which  as  Wordsworth  himself  tells  us, 

"Would  place, 

As  in  some  hours  might  not  be  unfelt, 
Among-  the  bowers  of  Paradise  itself 
The  budding  rose  above  the  rose  full-blown,"  1 

is  strong  in  this  dew-fresh  poetry  of  childhood. 
Pure  infancy,  undefiled  and  undefined,  speaks 
through  the  lisping  baby  or  angel-music  of  Blake ; 
a  maturer  age,  with  the  dawn  of  thought  and  of 
the  moral  affections,  attracts  the  poet  of  Lucy. 
To  Blake  and  Wordsworth  alike,  the  child  is  cher- 
ished, not  only  as  the  witness  to  immortality  but 
as  the  father  of  the  man  —  a  promise  and  a  pro- 
phecy of  the  life  that  is  to  be. 

Thus  the  emphasis  on  beginnings  was  charm- 
ingly apparent  at  the  outset  of  the  age  that  was  to 
love  growth  with  supreme  affection.  It  finds  fit 
complement  and  conclusion  in  the  vigorous  poetry 
of  maturer  life  given  us  at  the  close  of  the  epoch 
by  our  masterful  singer  of  the  strong  man  in  his 
battles,  and  chanter  of  the  triumph  of  old  age. 
Robert  Browning  is  the  one  poet  who  has  taken 
human  life  for  his  exclusive  province;  and  his 

1  The  Prelude,  Book  XL 


26     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

method  has  for  its  very  soul  the  tracing  of  develop- 
ment. Colornbe,  Caponsacchi,  Tresham,  Djabal, 
Chiappino,  Ottima,  — in  each  and  all  of  them  inter- 
est centres  in  those  critical  moments 

"  When  the  spirit's  true  endowments 
Stand  out  plainly  from  its  false  ones, 

And  apprise  it  if  pursuing 
Or  the  right  way  or  the  wrong  way, 

To  its  triumph  or  undoing." 1 

To  Browning,  cessation  is  impossible;  arrested 
development  the  one  tragedy  of  life. 

The  effect  of  the  force-idea  on  the  poetry  of 
character  appears  late,  in  its  matured  form  of 
Force  in  the  faith  in  development.  On  the  poetry 

Poetry  of  .  f  J 

Thought.  ot  nature  it  appears  early,  in  its  simpler 
form  of  feeling  for  law  and  life.  The  course  of 
the  century  has  emphasized  last  of  all  a  third  or- 
der of  verse,  distinctly  modern ;  the  poetry  of  Re- 
flection. We  have  sought  to  penetrate,  not  only 
the  soul  of  nature  and  of  man,  but  the  soul  of 
thought.  This  poetry  of  intellectual  inquiry  be- 
longs especially  to  the  age  of  Victoria.  Some- 
times akin  to  the  poetry  of  character,  it  differs  by 
its  more  subjective  cast.  It  appears  simultane- 
ously with  the  scientific  habit  of  analysis,  and  really 
is  one  aspect  of  that  habit,  applied  to  psychology. 
And  surely  we  may  say  without  fantasy  that  the 
new  passion  for  development  creates  it.  For,  if 
this  poetry  of  reflection,  as  we  find  it  in  Arnold 
and  Clough,  in  Tennyson  and  Browning,  differs 

1  Cristina. 


THE  FORCE-IDEA  27 

from  the  dead  didactic  verse  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  it  is  because  into  our  modern  work  has 
passed  the  breath  and  flame  of  change.  We  no 
longer  present  results;  we  study  process.  When 
a  writer  of  the  last  century  sought  to  compose  an 
"Essay  on  Man,"  he  sat  down  and  meditated; 
decided  what  could  to  advantage  be  said  on  the 
subject,  formulated  his  conclusions  in  the  most 
elegant  language  at  his  disposal,  and  bestowed  on 
the  world  a  rhythmical  row  of  sententious  and 
formed  opinions.  A  modern  writer  does  not  com- 
pose an  "Essay  on  Man: "  the  scientific  spirit  has 
saved  us  in  a  measure  from  the  love  of  sweeping 
assumption.  But,  in  such  contemplative  verse  as 
is  our  closest  parallel  to  the  old  pseudo-philosophi- 
cal writing,  his  method  is  new.  Once  more, 
development  confronts  us ;  searching  and  novel  in 
the  poetry  of  ideas  as  in  the  poetry  of  character. 
Our  poets  give  us,  not  fossil  opinions,  but  thought 
in  the  act.  We  turn  aside  from  even  the  short- 
est poem  which  fails  to  convey  some  sense  of  the 
movement  of  belief  or  mood.  In  all  our  writers 
we  detect  this  modern  note.  We  judge  by  reach, 
not  grasp.  Browning's  non-dramatic  poems  hold 
us  by  their  subtle  "guesses  at  truth."  Arnold 
struggles  through  the  storm  and  stress  of  thought 
towards  a  peace  ever  longed  for,  never  attained, 
and  we  give  him  a  sympathy  of  the  affections  for- 
feited by  the  complacent  working  theory  of  his 
middle  life.  Clough  fights  for  faith  through  bewil- 
dering doubts  of  his  very  power  to  believe,  and 
our  spirits  join  him  in  the  battle.  The  fullest 


28     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

instance  of  this  our  modern  passion  for  the  move- 
ment of  the  living  soul  is  the  central  poem  of  the 
epoch,  Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam."  The  whole 
interest  of  the  poem  is  in  tracing  a  gradual  process 
of  salvation,  individual  and  social.  The  soul, 
numb  at  first  with  despair,  is  slowly  roused  to  con- 
sciousness, and  led  step  by  step,  through  shifting 
phases  of  love  and  fear,  to  the  certain  hope  of 
reunion;  self-absorbed  in  private  and  special  sor- 
row, it  is  drawn  at  last  to  share  in  the  broader 
life  and  hope  of  all  humanity.  The  gradual  ex- 
perience of  years  is  faithfully  reflected  in  its  vital 
sequence,  each  phase,  incomplete  in  itself,  prepares 
the  way  for  its  successor;  and  the  final  triumph  of 
the  conclusion  gains  its  whole  value  from  the 
record  of  the  struggle  and  perplexity  by  which  it 
has  been  attained.  The  passion  for  development 
controls  our  writers.  Ours  is  the  age  of  the  poe- 
try of  struggle,  not  of  victory;  of  desire,  not  of 
achievement;  of  growth,  not  of  rest. 

3.     The  Unity-Idea. 

Into  the  poetry  which  deals  with  nature,  man, 
and  thought,  the  intuition  of  active  Force  has  then 
The  idea  brought  a  new  note.  It  has  revealed  the 
living  movement  of  the  human  mind,  it 
has  created  the  ideal  of  character  manifest  in 
development,  and  it  has  given  us  a  universe  no 
longer  rigidly  fixed,  but  instinct  with  tremulous 
charm. 

The  intuition  of  Unity  is  involved  with  that  of 


THE   UNITY-IDEA  29 

Force  in  evolutionary  thought;  it  has  become 
indeed  the  very  atmosphere  of  our  minds.  Ab- 
sent except  as  fantasy  from  cruder  and  more  prim- 
itive times,  this  perception  has  made  our  modern 
science  a  new  thing,  and  has  vitally,  though  indi- 
rectly, modified  our  poetry. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  subtly  this  sense  is  lack- 
ing in  primitive  literatures,  and  in  what  strange 
ways,  often  trifling,  the  absence  shows  itself.  The 
early  human  consciousness,  like  that  of  the  child, 
grasps  parts,  not  wholes.  Witness  the  fondness 
of  all  early  times  for  proverbs  and  gnomic  poetry, 
disconnected  scraps  of  wisdom,  which  have  floated 
to  us  down  the  centuries  from  Aryan,  Greek, 
Teuton,  and  Slav.  Witness  the  absence  of  cause 
and  effect  in  those  old  epics  and  romances  where 
nai've  charm  and  childishness  spring  alike  from 
the  lack  of  wholeness  of  vision.  Impossible  se- 
quences and  spasmodic  relations  are  the  order  of 
the  day,  even  so  late  as  Ariosto,  till  the  absence 
of  cause  makes  the  dizzy  reader  of  the  "Orlando 
Furioso"  lose  all  relation  to  mother-earth.  The 
nonsense  even  of  our  ancestors  is  founded  not  on 
the  imitation  but  on  the  denial  of  logic:  —  "The 
shadow  of  an  egg  carried  the  new  year  upon  the 
bottom  of  a  pot ;  two  old  new  combs  made  a  ball 
to  run  the  trot;  I  cried  out,  without  saying  a 
word,  'take  the  feather  of  an  ox,  and  clothe  a 
wise  fool  with  it.'  " 

The  very  figures  of  the  older  poets  show,  even 
to  a  late  period,  a  tendency  to  the  same  absence 
of  connection.  How  else  shall  we  explain  that 


30     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

cold  love  for  ingenuity  which  demands,  not  that  a 
figure  reveal  likeness,  but  that  it  startle  by  incon- 
gruity? The  more  far-fetched  and  impossible  the 
resemblance,  the  more  credit  to  the  poet  for  worry- 
ing it  out;  and  he  achieves  the  greatest  triumph 
who  contrives  to  bring  together  two  objects  most 
widely  disconnected  by  nature  and  common  sense. 
"Conceits"  —  there  could  be  no  better  name  for 
these  extraordinary  concoctions  of  fancy.  Their 
cold  ingenuity  is  sometimes  appalling ;  as  in  this : 

"  Our  two  souls,  which  are  one, 
Though  I  must  go,  endure  not  yet 
A  breach,  hut  an  expansion, 
Like  gold  to  airy  thinness  heat. 
If  they  be  two,  they  are  two,  so 
As  stiff  twin-compasses  are  two. 
Thy  soul,  the  fixed  foot,  makes  no  show 
To  move,  but  doth,  if  th'  other  do. 
And  tho'  it  in  the  centre  sit, 
Yet  when  the  other  far  doth  roam, 
It  leans  and  hearkens  after  it, 
And  grows  erect,  as  that  comes  home. 
Such  wilt  thou  be  to  me,  who  must, 
Like  th'  other  foot,  obliquely  run  ; 
Thy  firmness  makes  my  circle  just, 
And  makes  me  end  where  I  begun." 1 

Nor  are  the  "conceits"  of  the  "metaphysical" 
poets  the  only  late  survivals  of  a  deficient  sense 
for  unity.  If  the  novels  and  romances  of  the  last 
century  are  less  absurdly  incongruous  than  the 
mediaeval  epic,  their  superficial  unity  is  a  mere 
concession  to  observation.  The  age  that  could 
produce  and  read  a  "Castle  of  Otranto"  had  no 
grasp  on  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect.  The 

1  Donne  :  A  Valediction  Forbidding  Mourning. 


THE   UNITY-IDEA  31 

absence  of  any  feeling  for  coherence  peeps  out, 
not  only  in  the  fiction  but  in  the  literary  theories 
of  the  age  of  Queen  Anne.  Poems  are  valued  not 
as  wholes  but  for  the  number  of  isolated  beauties 
they  contain,  and  the  ambition  of  the  poet  is,  as 
Gosse  has  pointed  out,  to  say  something  brilliant 
in  every  line.  No  higher  praise  could  be  awarded 
a  poem  than  that  given  in  1783  by  the  respected 
Mr.  Harvey,  remarking  —  was  it  not  anent  a  lit- 
tle lilt  of  one  William  Blake?  —  that  it  "abounds 
in  picturesque,  useful,  and  striking  sentiments." 
The  power  of  judging  wholes  hardly  appears,  even 
in  the  literary  criticism  of  the  "Edinburgh  Ke- 
view; "  it  was  reserved  for  a  scientific  age. 

Is  there  need  to  say  how  great  and  subtle  a 
change  has  thrilled  through  the  very  sub-  The  idea 

£  ,  O       TT     VL  PreS6nt    and 

stance  of  modern  poetry  f  Unity,  once  Justified. 
achieved  by  occasional  instinct,  has  become  a  rec- 
ognized aesthetic  law.  Our  nonsense  to-day  must 
be  pretended  logic ;  the  delicious  absurdities  of  . 
Alice  in  Looking-Glass  Country  all  depend  on  the 
solemn  manner  in  which  reasoning  is  tipped  upside 
down,  so  that  if  you  want  to  get  away  from  a 
house  you  must  walk  at  it,  and  to  keep  still  must 
run  as  quick  as  you  can,  and  do  all  your  scream- 
ing before  you  are  hurt.  Our  figures,  too,  have 
felt  the  breath  of  a  new  mystery.  Eossetti  cries 
of  his  Lady  in  "  The  Portrait: "  — 

"  While  hopes  and  aims  long-  lost  with  her 
Stand  round  her  image,  side  by  side, 


32     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

Like  tombs  of  pilgrims  that  have  died 
About  the  Holy  Sepulchre." 

Outwardly,  the  resemblance  is  remote  as  in 
Donne;  inwardly,  what  passionate  vision  of  one- 
ness! The  new  impulse  for  unity  renders  the 
fantastic  not  only  impossible  but  tedious.  We 
can  tolerate  in  fiction  no  lack  of  verisimilitude,  in 
verse  no  hustling  of  ideas  into  separate  depart- 
ments. Life  is  one.  Feeling  pervades  our  poetic 
metaphysics,  and  our  pure  sentiment  is  touched 
by  thought.  Our  lyrics  become  little  dramas,  and 
our  epics  breathe  philosophy.  The  power  to  form 
connected  plots,  the  fusion  of  different  orders  of 
poetry,  the  critical  conception  of  an  art-product 
as  an  organic  whole,  all  witness  to  our  instinctive 
feeling  for  interdependence.  From  our  nonsense 
to  our  religion,  from  Wonderland  Alice  to  Tenny- 
son and  his  Higher  Pantheism,  our  art  is  moulded 
by  the  perception  that  life  is  one. 

The  imagination  from  the  beginning  of  time  has 
wished  to  bear  witness  to  this  oneness  of  life; 
and  in  its  greatest  moments  it  has  succeeded,  as 
in  the  superb,  instinctive  artistic  unity  of  the 
Shakespearean  drama.  But  only  in  its  greatest. 
Human  thought  has  ever  reached  out  for  unity; 
again  and  again,  seeming  to  find  nothing  but 
diversity,  it  has  sunk  back  baffled,  and  taken 
refuge  in  emphasis  on  detail  or  in  puerile  fancy :  — 

"  Yet  earth  drenched,  water  proves,  which  boiled,  turns  air  — 
Hot  air  makes  fire :   condensed,  all  change  and  home  repair," 

cries  a  poor  old  poet,  voicing  the  queer  philosophy 
of  his  day ;  and  there  is  pathos  in  the  absurd  lines, 


THE   UNITY-IDEA  33 

with  their  struggle  to  find  beneath  varying  shows 
the  true  oneness  of  the  universe. 

Such  a  desire  for  unity  must  exist  as  long  as 
poetry  is  poetry,  —  that  is,  the  result  of  a  crea- 
tive imagination.  For  the  essential  quality  of  the 
imagination  is  that  it  perceives  wholes,  not  parts. 
The  unimaginative  writer  sees  any  detail  as  an 
isolated  fact ;  a  yellow  primrose  is  to  him  a  yellow 
primrose.  The  poet  cannot  touch  a  flower  or  a  fly 
without  feeling  its  relation  to  the  great  whole  of 
which  it  is  a  part.  It  is  to  him  symbol  as  well 
as  thing.  And  in  this  peculiar  faculty  of  seeing 
broadly  and  deeply  lies  the  strange  power  of  the 
imagination  to  purify  and  extend  our  vision's 
range. 

In  this  vague  conviction  of  interdependence  it 
has  not  stood  alone.  Philosophy  and  religion  have 
alike  sympathized  in  it.  Deep  down  in  the  human 
heart  —  so  deep  that  we  are  tempted  to  call  it  a 
primary  intuition  —  has  always  lain  the  belief  in 
the  harmony  of  the  universe.  Such  belief  is  at 
the  bottom  of  all  symbolism.  From  the  earliest 
dawnings  of  racial  consciousness  to  the  religious 
services  of  our  modern  churches  there  has  been  a 
constant  and  elaborate  effort  to  express  in  worship 
the  unseen  by  the  seen.  Nothing  can  be  stranger 
than  to  study  the  repeated  efforts  to  escape  from 
this  method  and  the  constant  reversion  to  it  in 
increasingly  subtle  form.  And  the  instinct  is  jus- 
tified; for  it  rests  on  the  conviction  that  the  spirit 
can  only  be  revealed  to  us  through  the  flesh ;  that 
the  lower  can  only  exist  in  relation  to  the  higher; 


34     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

and  that  thus  each  tiniest  fact  of  the  natural  world 
must  bear  witness  to  truths  beyond  itself.  The 
faith  that  the  arch  of  the  heavens  above  and  the 
blossoming  of  the  earth  beneath  and  the  tumultu- 
ous joy  and  pain  of  the  human  soul  are  varying 
manifestations  of  the  universal  Spirit,  is  part  of 
the  heritage  of  the  ages.  In  the  ritual  of  the 
Buddhist  temple  and  of  the  Christian  Church,  in 
the  poems  of  the  sensuous  lover  of  nature,  and  the 
treatises  of  the  abstract  thinker,  and  the  visions 
of  the  mystic  and  the  seer,  we  find  the  same  funda- 
mental conviction,  triumphant  against  the  asser- 
tions of  a  narrow  science  and  the  indifference  of  a 
shallow  common  sense. 

Yet  that  not  only  common  sense,  but  science, 
has  been  against  the  belief  cannot  be  denied. 
Deductive  science,  if  it  did  not  discountenance,  at 
least  ignored  it;  inductive  science  was,  until  very 
lately,  too  busy  emphasizing  variety  to  discover 
unity.  Thus  faith  in  it  has  been  perpetually 
hampered  and  hindered.  It  has  inevitably  been 
latent  rather  than  dynamic.  The  dreamers  of  the 
world  have  held  it  more  firmly  than  have  the 
thinkers.  A  mystical  philosophy  here  and  there 
would  mysteriously  hint  it;  a  church  would  strug- 
gle to  express  it  through  symbolism  too  often 
arbitrary  and  crude ;  a  Dante  or  a  Spenser  would 
flash  it  upon  us  in  broken  gleams;  but  never  until 
this  century  has  it  been  grasped  as  a  universal 
formative  principle  of  thought.  The  imagination 
has  been  perpetually  hampered  by  the  sense  of  its 
own  irrationality.  It  has  been  a  mysterious  in- 


THE   UNITY-IDEA  35 

stinct  working  in  opposition  to  all  known  law. 
Hence  knowledge  and  poetry  were  regarded  almost 
as  antitheses;  and  as  soon  as  scientific  conceptions 
began  to  spread,  the  sphere  of  poetry  began  appar- 
ently to  contract.  In  the  last  century  that  sphere 
was  very  narrow  indeed.  The  imagination  lived, 
indeed,  but  it  lived  a  half-hearted  existence,  op- 
posed by  clear  thought  and  confident  opinion. 

But  a  change  was  at  hand;  it  has  been  wit- 
nessed by  our  own  generation ;  and  it  is  so  great 
and  extended  in  its  possibilities  that  we  can  hardly 
wonder  to  find  it  faintly  apprehended  as  yet. 

It  has  happened  before  —  it  has  happened  now 
—  that  the  mysticism  of  the  past  has  become  the 
practical  science  of  the  present.  Accurate,  dis- 
passionate, and  patient  study  of  unimaginative 
men  has  established  as  a  fact  for  the  many  the 
secret  hypothesis  of  the  few.  The  unity  of  law  is 
a  truth  less  to  be  doubted  than  the  existence  of 
matter.  There  subsists  between  all  things  a  rela- 
tion not  arbitrary  but  vital;  for  one  great  connect- 
ing principle  runs  through  all  the  world.  What 
this  principle  may  be  —  this  central  truth  from 
which  all  phenomena  derive  their  significance  — 
science  cannot  tell  us ;  but  it  can  reveal  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  truth,  for  it  can  show  us  a  universal 
and  orderly  sequence.  Thus  the  imagination  is 
vindicated ;  for  its  instinct  is  shown  to  be  identi- 
cal with  the  deepest  of  known  law.  Thus  all 
symbolism  receives  its  sanction,  and  is  at  the  same 
time  put  upon  a  theoretically  rational  basis,  since 
it  must  be  no  longer  invented  but  sought. 


36     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

The  same  temper  that  governs  the  minute  spec- 
ulations of  a  Darwin  enables  the  poet  to  enter  with 
exquisite  Tightness  into  the  soul  of  a  daisy,  or  in 
moments  of  gloom  to  find  tranquillity  in  the  as- 
pect of  the  star-sown  heaven.  It  is  impossible  to 
predict  the  freedom,  elasticity,  and  enlargement  of 
scope  in  poetic  work,  when  once  the  imagination 
realizes  that  it  now  works  in  deepest  harmony  with 
truth.  How  much  once  vague  and  despised  will 
find  its  justification!  In  the  knowledge  of  the 
cycles  of  being  through  which  we  have  swung  up- 
ward, we  discover  the  sanction  of  all  mysterious 
thrills  of  sympathy  to  ocean,  flower,  brute,  and 
the  great  life  of  the  whirling  world.  They  are 
no  longer  sentiment  or  illusion;  they  are  based 
on  most  honest  fact.  They  testify  to  the  actual 
union  of  mind  and  soul  with  this  complex,  warm- 
hearted earth;  they  bear  witness  to  our  uncon- 
scious past. 

Our  modern  attitude  sees  in  the  charming  and 
ceaseless  motion  of  nature  the  play  of  expression 
upon  her  face,  the  witness  to  the  living  force 
within.  Yet  this  very  expression  would  cease  to 
be  winsome  did  we  not  recognize  in  the  secret 
might  it  manifests,  a  mode  of  being  mysterious 
indeed,  but  not  alien  to  our  own.  If  we  are  able 
with  Shelley  to  hear  nature  singing  an  eternal 
antiphon  to  our  own  experience,  if  with  the  higher 
subjectivity  of  Wordsworth  we  can  attune  our 
petty  voices  to  the  vast  music  of  the  world  with- 
out, we  owe  this  tender  intimacy  and  inwardness 
of  relation  to  the  sense  of  unity  between  nature 


THE  REALISTIC  TEMPER  37 

and  our  own  spirits  brought  by  the  great  thought 
of  evolution.  The  instinctive  adoption  of  higher 
standards  of  artistic  harmony  is  great,  the  rejec- 
tion of  capricious  and  fantastic  is  significant. 
But  the  largest  work  of  the  new  and  mighty  intui- 
tion of  unity  has  been  to  draw  the  heart  of  nature 
near  to  the  heart  of  man. 


4.    The  Realistic  Temper 

The  influence  of  modern  science  upon  litera- 
ture has  of  course  been  negative  as  well  as  posi- 
tive. It  has  ruthlessly  destroyed  the 


.  tion  to  the 

greater  part  or  the  subject-matter  ot  our  Actual. 
older  poetry.  The  sweet  old  classic  myths,  the 
dew-drenched  mediaeval  epic  with  its  dragons  and 
gnomes  and  fair  bewitched  ladies,  —  they  have 
vanished,  not  only  from  our  faith  but  from  our 
verse.  Our  heroes  no  longer  slash  off  each  oth- 
er's heads  in  the  charming  old  fashion,  and  wan- 
der about  in  search  of  a  convenient  wizard  to  put 
them  on  again;  mermaids  do  not  abound  in  the 
British  Channel  or  the  Atlantic;  and  even  the 
dear  fairies  have  ceased  to  trip  through  our  verse 
in  dainty  guise.  Our  strongest  poetry  ignores 
such  subjects.  If  we  wish  to  find  them  treated 
we  must  turn  to  the  poetry  which  is  but  a  morbid 
though  often  a  powerful  effort  to  reconstruct  the 
past.  In  whatever  direction  we  look  we  find  evi- 
dence that  modern  poetry  has  consecrated  itself  to 
the  study  of  actual  conditions.  What  is  the  dif- 
ference between  the  loftiest  poem  and  the  crudest 


38     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

naturalistic  romance?  Not  that  one  studies  fact 
while  the  other  rejects  it,  but  that  the  one  photo- 
\.  graphs  while  the  other  interprets.  Both  insist  on 
literal  and  accurate  truth;  both  exclude  the  adven- 
titious elements  of  interest  which  were  once  con- 
sidered essential.  Preternatural  and  improbable 
incidents  are  as  rigidly  ruled  out  by  a  Wordsworth 
as  by  a  Zola;  they  are  ruled  out  through  the 
whole  extent  of  modern  poetry. 

This  exclusion  is,  perhaps,  most  remarkable, 
as  it  is  certainly  most  complete,  in  one  special 
direction.  In  the  solemn  moments  when  they 
approached  the  nearest  to  the  secret  of  existence, 
and  dealt  with  the  elemental  passions  of  the  hu- 
man heart,  the  older  poets  almost  invariably  sought 
to  add  depth  and  sacredness  to  their  creations  by 
the  introduction  of  an  objective  supernatural  force. 
Even  the  poet  of  widest  resources  and  most  free 
from  any  taint  of  morbidness  has  not  shrunk  from 
this  expedient.  In  his  most  intense  situations, 
where  the  emotions  are  strained  to  the  utmost, 
and  the  real  is  separated  from  the  apparent, 
Shakespeare  emphasizes  most  strongly  the  super- 
natural element.  The  mysterious  hags  surround 
Macbeth  upon  the  blasted  heath;  the  gray  ghost 
of  the  murdered  Dane  still  walks  his  castle  ram- 
parts ;  the  spirit  of  Caesar  seals  the  fate  of  Brutus. 
In  the  crisis  of  the  drama,  when  the  actual  life 
of  actual  man  is  most  intensely  portrayed,  come 
these  strange  visitants  of  pity  or  terror. 

But  to  us  they  appear  no  more;  or,  if  they 
appear,  it  is  as  faint  allegorical  attractions,  as  in- 


THE  REALISTIC  TEMPER  39 

teresting  subjective  illusions,  at  best  as  the  orna- 
ment of  a  graceful  mediaeval  revival,  employed 
in  the  same  spirit  as  obsolete  words,  or  the  quaint 
customs  of  a  dead  chivalry.  Where  in  modern 
poetry  shall  you  find  a  genuine,  vigorous,  effective 
ghost?  Where,  indeed,  except  in  the  morbid 
imaginings  of  a  solitary  Yorkshire  girl,  cut  off 
from  the  current  of  modern  life ;  and  even  in  that 
wonderful  study  of  "Wuthering  Heights"  the 
ghastly  horror  of  the  conception  lies  in  the  fact 
that  the  spirit  of  Catharine  is  neither  visible  nor 
mentioned,  and  is  realized  only  as  reflected  in  the 
awful  bearing  of  the  man  possessed.  Even  in 
Browning,  the  lover  of  abnormal  types  and  dis- 
eased conditions,  this  element  is  entirely  absent. 
His  interest  and  ours  no  longer  centres  in  the 
spirit  summoned  back  to  earth;  it  centres  in  the 
twisting  and  turning  of  the  mind  of  the  so-called 
medium,  his  tricks,  his  whines,  his  clever  sophisms, 
his  half  beliefs.  The  most  effective  of  the  older 
methods  of  exciting  awe  has  been  lost  to  us. 

"  I  look  for  ghosts  —  but  none  will  force 

Their  way  to  me  ;  't  is  falsely  said 
That  ever  there  was  intercourse 

Between  the  living  and  the  dead."  * 

This  is  the  conclusion  of  our  serious  thought,  re- 
flected in  our  serious  poetry. 

To  all  lovers  of  poetry  such  a  change  seemed,  at 
first,  very  doleful.  They  looked  about  —  those 
whose  enthusiasm  was  not  aroused  by  the  stupid 
parts  of  nature,  by  worms  and  sticks  and  the 
articulation  of  cockroaches'  wings  —  with  a  mourn- 

1  Wordsworth  :   The  Affliction  of  Margaret. 


40     SCIENCE  AND  THE  MODERN  POETS 

ful  expectation  of  finding  life  very  prosaic.  Their 
childhood's  paradise,  the  sphere  in  which  the 
imagination  lived  and  worked,  had  seemingly  been 
hurled  away  into  space ;  it  is  no  wonder  that  they 
gazed  after  it  with  sorrowful  hearts,  and  felt  that 
the  power  of  poetic  vision  would  be  dimmed  and 
die,  deprived  of  its  natural  atmosphere. 

Yet,  after  the  first,  men  began  to  see  that  there 
might  be  compensations  for  our  loss;  that  the 
mystery  of  light  may  be  as  suggestive  as  the  mys- 
tery of  darkness;  that  men  and  women,  aglow 
with  passion,  radiant  with  thought,  wondrous  in 
personality,  may  prove  as  interesting  as  the  most 
delightful  of  nymphs  and  griffins;  that,  in  short, 
the  truest  idealism  may  rise  from  the  most  gen- 
uinely realistic  basis.  In  the  midst  of  our  regret 
for  the  charming  elements  of  old  romance  Landor 
speaks  to  us:  "The  human  heart  is  the  world  of 
poetry;  the  imagination  is  only  its  atmosphere. 
Fairies  and  genii  and  angels  themselves  are  at 
best  its  insects,  glancing  with  unsubstantial  wings 
about  its  lower  regions  and  less  noble  edifices." 
As  we  fear  lest  the  rejection  of  the  supernatural 
imply  denial  of  spiritual  agencies,  we  feel,  in  lis- 
tening to  Carlyle,  that  perhaps  we  are  only  be- 
ginning to  look  for  those  agencies  no  longer  with- 
out us  but  within  us:  "Ghosts!  There  are  nigh 
a  thousand  million  walking  the  earth  openly  at 
noontide;  some  half -hundred  have  vanished  from 
it,  some  half-hundred  have  arisen  on  it,  ere  thy 
watch  ticks  once."  As  the  great  principles  of 
force  and  unity  gain  firmer  hold,  poetry  may 


THE  REALISTIC  TEMPER  41 


indeed  lose  something  of  the  fantastic  license  of 
the  past;  but  in  accepting  limitation  it  will  gain 
a  truer  freedom,  for  its  highest  function  is  assur- 
edly to  work  not  in  subservience  to  caprice  but  in 
harmony  with  perceived  reality. 

Deeper  than  scientific  ideas  lies  the  scientific 
temper.  And  the  notes  of  this  temper  are  two: 
reverence  for  Law,  passion  for  Fact. 

Reverence  for  Law,  passion  for  Fact!     These 
are   the   principles  which  working   inwardly  and 
silently  have  renewed  our  poetry.     For  Reverence 
literary  history  clearly  shows  that  their  f 
presence  and  their  union  could  alone  bring  new 
life  to  the  imagination  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  romantic  art  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth  had 
ignored  the  limits  of  law;  the  classical  art  of  the 
Augustan  age  had  despised  the  offers  of  fact.  If 
the  world  of  the  one  tends  to  incoherence,  the 
world  of  the  other  is  artificial.  Before  the  poetic 
revolution,  classical  influences  ruled.  Restrict- 
ing scope  while  they  perfected  method,  rejecting 
all  subjects  that  implied  mystery  or  defied  classifi- 
cation, they  reduced  poetry  to  an  emptiness  not 
unnoted  even  in  their  own  day.  Wrote  Cowley, 
in  a  panegyric  on  Harvey,  the  discoverer  of  the 
circulation  :  — 

"  Thou,  Harvey,  sought  for  Truth  in  Truth's  own  book, 
The  creatures  ;  -which  by  God  himself  was  writ  ; 
And  wisely  thought  't  was  fit 
Not  to  read  comments  only  upon  it, 
But  on  th'  original  itself  to  look. 
Methinks  in  art's  great  circle  others  stand 


42     SCIENCE    AND    THE  MODERN  POETS 

Locked  up  together,  hand  in  hand. 

Every  one  leads  as  he  is  led, 

The  same  bare  path  they  tread, 

And  dance  like  fairies,  a  fantastic  round, 

But  neither  change  their  motion  nor  their  ground." 

Nothing  could  better  describe  the  condition  of 
poetry  during  part  of  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries.  It  was  obvious  that  unless  some 
renovating  and  enlarging  impulse  from  without 
should  infuse  fresh  vigor  into  poetic  thought,  that 
thought  was  doomed.  The  direction  in  which 
such  an  impulse  would  most  efficiently  work,  was 
also  obvious.  It  should  unite  the  essential  power 
of  the  two  opposing  schools.  It  should  recognize 
Law,  more  deeply  conceived  than  mere  rule,  as 
the  controlling  principle  of  nature  and  of  art;  at 
the  same  time,  it  must  hold  the  reverent  attitude 
of  entire  receptivity  towards  the  wide  sweep  of 
natural  fact. 

The  influence  came ;  and  from  the  most  improb- 
able quarter.  The  scientific  temper,  falsely  con- 
ceived, had  seemed  to  be  drying  up  the  very  roots 
of  our  poetry ;  in  truth,  it  was  to  infuse  into  these 
same  roots  a  fresh  and  vigorous  sap. 

Science  brought  with  it  the  recognition  of  a  law 
deeper  than  human  ideas,  in  the  very  constitution 
of  the  world.  This  intuition,  once  gained  in  the 
domain  of  nature,  was  instinctively  applied  in  the 
domain  of  aBsthetics.  The  classical  love  of  method 
had  become  almost  a  mode  of  thought.  The  sci- 
entific temper  at  once  sanctioned  and  exalted  it, 
bringing  it  into  harmony  with  the  formative  prin- 
ciples of  nature,  and  transforming  the  invention  of 


THE  REALISTIC   TEMPER  43 

arbitrary  rules  into  the  recognition  of  eternal  law. 
The  exquisite  elaboration  of  technique  in  our  mod- 
ern verse,  far  more  its  wide  sanity,  its  constant 
self-mastery  in  form  and  substance,  all  witness  to 
an  instinct  for  artistic  law,  not  so  much  classical, 
in  either  the  ancient  or  the  modern  sense,  as  truly 
scientific.  Our  controlled  poetic  passion,  obedi- 
ent not  to  conventions  or  traditions,  but  to  the  in- 
ward laws  of  its  own  being,  has  a  dignity  all  its 
own.  And  in  such  obedience  to  a  principle  of 
Law  recognized  as  primordial  and  eternal,  imagi- 
nation finds  its  strength,  its  life,  and  its  power  to 
minister. 

If  reverence  for  law  deeper  than  that  of  the 
Augustan  shapes  our  poetry,  a  passion  for  fact 
wider  than  that  of  the  Elizabethan  ex-  Passion 
pands  it.  For  the  world  is  larger  to-day  forFacfc- 
than  ever  before.  Our  modern  realism,  offspring 
of  science  and  democracy,  has  opened  new  artistic 
horizons,  alike  towards  nature  and  society.  Life 
is  greater  than  art,  and  the  world  still  waits  its 
revealer.  It  is  strange  to  realize  how  little,  after 
all,  is  the  vaunted  achievement  of  the  imagination. 
Shut  off  from  consciousness  for  a  moment  the 
poetic  work  of  the  last  century.  Compare,  then, 
the  revelation  of  the  world  as  we  know  it  through 
that  greatest  poem,  experience,  with  the  written 
record  of  the  poets.  If  they  have  given  much, 
they  have  left  far  more  unsaid,  and  their  achieve- 
ment, if  unspeakably  great,  is  also  unspeakably 
little.  The  drama  and  the  vision  of  even  an  aver- 


44     SCIENCE  AND  THE  MODERN  POETS 

age  soul  have  never  been  fully  given,  not  by  Ho- 
mer, not  by  Dante,  not  by  Shakespeare.  There 
were  giants  on  the  earth  in  those  days,  and  they 
spoke  with  the  tongues  of  giants.  The  elemen- 
tary passions  of  men,  from  ambition  to  worship, 
are  supremely  revealed ;  but  of  the  subtle  play  of 
character  on  character,  of  the  delicate  soul-expe- 
rience that  makes  up  the  best  of  life,  the  most 
remains  untold.  The  broad,  simple,  and  universal 
aspects  of  nature  are  given  us ;  but  for  the  ocean, 
violet,  and  rose-pure  under  its  cloud -shadows,  for 
snowy  peaks  lifting  white  hands  of  intercession  to 
the  heavens,  for  the  supreme  glory  and  subtlest 
beauty  of  the  world,  we  look  in  vain.  Whole  soul- 
epics  are  yet  unwritten,  and  the  full  praise  of  na- 
ture is  yet  unsung. 

The  world  still  waits  its  revealer.  Yet  the  mod- 
ern poets,  if  smaller  than  the  men  of  old,  have  none 
the  less  entered  many  a  fair  path  before  untrod- 
den. The  living  nature  revealed  by  Wordsworth 
and  Shelley,  the  inner  life  revealed  by  Clough, 
Arnold,  and  Tennyson,  the  sphere  of  the  grotesque 
swept  within  the  kingdom  of  poetry  by  the  auda- 
cious art  of  Browning,  these  are  all  foreign  to  the 
poets  of  the  past.  It  is  the  passion  for  fact  that 
gives  them  to  us.  For  this  passion,  dangerous 
to  art  if  for  one  moment  divorced  from  profound 
reverence  for  law,  grants,  when  thus  purified  and 
controlled,  the  very  freedom  of  the  earth  to  the 
imagination. 

Striking  in  the  conquest  of  new  subjects  for 
poetry,  scientific  realism  works  with  yet  more 


THE  REALISTIC   TEMPER  45 

keenness  in  the  development  of  a  more  delicate 
perception.  A  marvelous  feeling  for  detail  marks 
our  verse.  Leading  to  a  subtlety  in  psychological 
analysis  hitherto  unknown,  this  feeling  is  even 
more  impressive  in  the  treatment  of  nature. 

Poetry,  like  science,  has  passed  from  the  atti- 
tude that  speculates  to  the  attitude  that  observes. 
Already,  early  in  the  last  century,  Thompson,  and 
later,  Cowper,  reacted  from  the  generalized  nature 
of  the  older  poets,  looked  straight  at  the  green 
earth,  and  told  us  what  they  saw  there.  But 
when  poetry  first  began  to  appreciate  the  charms 
of  observation  it  passed  through  a  brief  but  curi- 
ous phase.  For  a  time  it  appreciated  nothing 
else.  The  pseudo-scientific  school  at  the  close  of 
the  last  century  could  see  nothing  in  nature  but 
an  accumulation  of  details.  Were  the  details 
sordid?  No  matter;  there  they  were,  and  they 
should  be  described.  Listen  to  Cowper,  on  the 
raising  of  cucumbers :  — 

"  The  seed,  selected  wisely,  plump  and  smooth 
And  glossy,  he  commits  to  pots,  of  size 
Diminutive,  well  filled  with  well-preserved 
And  fruitful  soil,  that  has  been  treasured  long, 
And  drank  no  moisture  from  the  dripping  clouds. 
These  on  the  warm  and  genial  earth,  that  hides 
The  smoking  manure,  and  o'erspreads  it  all, 
He  places  lightly ;  and  as  Time  subdues 
The  rage  of  fermentation,  plunges  it 
In  the  soft  medium,"  etc.  1 

It  is  as  impossible  to  deny  that  this  is  scientific  as 

to  affirm  that  it  is  poetic.     Poetry,  however,  soon 

i  The  Task,  III.  511-520. 


46     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

recovered  from  this  attack  of  literalism.  It  real- 
ized that  its  function  was  not  to  catalogue  but  to 
interpret,  and  that  the  power  to  transfigure  was 
as  necessary  as  the  power  to  perceive. 

From  the  time  of  Wordsworth,  our  modern 
poets  give  us  objective  truth  lovingly,  minutely, 
but  always  illumined  by  the  imagination.  Their 
wealth  of  knowledge  and  vitality  of  insight  come 
out  clearly  in  placing  even  fragments  of  their  work 
beside  fragments  from  those  earlier  times  when 
conventionality  and  generalization  prevail.  Spen- 
ser, for  instance,  and  Keats  are  twin  spirits  in 
aesthetic  temperament.  No  one  can  read  the  "Fae- 
rie Queene,"  delighting  in  the  exquisite  fitness  of 
setting,  and  deny  that  this  poet  of  forest  and 
ocean  and  garden  and  gay  hillside  dearly  loved 
the  outer  world.  Yet  when  he  wants  to  tell  us 
about  a  forest,  a  conventional  description,  time- 
worn  with  poetic  service,  is  good  enough  for  him. 

"  Much  can  they  praise  the  trees  so  straighte  and  hye, 
The  sapling  pine,  the  cedar  proud  and  tall  — 
The  vine-propp'd  elm,  the  poplar  never  dry, 
The  builder  oake,  sole  king  of  forests  all, 
The  aspen,  good  for  staves  ;  the  cypress  funerall,"  1  etc. 

Fancy  the  modern  poet  who  should  describe  his 
trees  as  "straighte"  and  "hye."  They  are  excel- 
lent words,  and  perfectly  true ;  but  there  is  about 
them  something  obvious  which  fails  to  appeal  to 
the  modern  reader. 

Keats  has  but  one  tree  in  his  forest;  and  he 
gives  the  spirit  of  it,  not  by  enumeration  of 

1  The  Faerie  Queene,  I.  1,  st.  8. 


THE  REALISTIC   TEMPER  47 

details,  but  by  grand  imaginative  grasp  of  the 
whole.  Yet  who  can  read  the  lines  without  feel- 
ing himself  in  the  very  presence  of  the  hushed  and 
dusky  wood? 

"  As  when,  upon  a  tranced  summer  night, 
Those  green-robed  senators  of  mighty  woods, 
Tall  oaks,  branch-charmed  by  the  earnest  stars, 
Dream,  and  so  dream  all  night  without  a  stir, 
Save  from  one  gradual  solitary  gust, 
Which  comes  upon  the  silence,  and  dies  off 
As  if  the  ebbing  air  had  but  one  wave."  * 

Or,  if  one  like  to  compare  with  Spenser  a  modern 
fragment  in  the  enumerative  method,  take  Words- 
worth, with  his 

"  Tall  ash-tree,  sown  by  winds,  by  vapors  nursed, 
In  the  dry  crannies  of  the  pendent  rocks ; 
Light  birch,  aloft  upon  the  horizon's  edge, 
A  veil  of  glory  for  the  ascending  moon ; 
And  oak,  whose  roots  by  noontide  dew  were  damped, 
And  on  whose  forehead  inaccessible 
The  raven  lodged  in  safety."  2 

Our  development  of  specific  detail  grows  more 
striking  as  we  look  more  closely,  and  in  narrower 
lines.  Consider,  for  instance,  the  feeling  for 
color.  Take  from  Shelley  the  "  moonlight  colored 
cup  "  of  his  lily,  with  the  "  fiery  star  which  is  its 
eye;"  from  Tennyson  the  "  rosy  plumelets  of  the 
larch,"  the  "  laburnums,  dropping- wells  of  fire," 
and  "  all  the  silvery  gossamers  that  twinkle  into 
green  and  gold,"  and  see  how  life  and  interest 
vanish.  A  colorless  world  is  as  dreary  in  poetry 
as  it  would  be  in  reality.  Yet  such  a  world  in  the 
main  the  early  literatures  give.  Mr.  Gladstone's 

1  Hyperion,  I.  72-78.  2  The  Excursion,  Book  VII. 


48       SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

curious  hypothesis,  which  accounts  for  the  com- 
plete absence  of  color  epithets  in  Homer  by  sup- 
posing the  old  Greeks  to  have  been  color-blind,  is 
familiar  to  all.  Turning  to  the  dawn  of  our  own 
literature,  we  find  in  the  frequent  nature  and  armor 
descriptions  of  Beowulf  scarcely  a  single  color  term, 
unless  it  be  the  strange  "snake-colored"  applied 
to  a  sword.  In  Chaucer,  the  next  great  represen- 
tative poet,  there  is  a  certain  change.  That  his 
perception  of  color  was  strong  and  true  is  obvious 
from  such  a  vivid  piece  of  work  as  the  Cock  in 
"  The  Nonne-priest's  Tale,"  and  from  such  bits  as 
these  in  "The  Knighte's  Tale:"- 

"  Eraelie,  that  fairer  was  to  seene 
Than  is  the  lilie  on  her  stalke  greene, 
And  fresher  than  the  May  with  floures  new, 
For  with  the  rose-colour  strof  her  hew  ' '  — 

"  Of  alabaster  white,  and  red  corall 
An  oratorie,  riche  for  to  see." 

But  his  evident  appreciation  only  makes  the  cus- 
tomary absence  of  the  color  element  more  striking. 
Even  in  "The  Knighte's  Tale,"  where  the  treatment 
is  purely  pictorial,  such  passages  as  the  above  can 
be  counted  on  one's  fingers.  In  the  Prologue 
there  are  but  a  half-dozen  touches,  each  dismissed 
in  a  single  word.  The  white  and  red  embroidery 
of  the  Squire's  tunic,  the  scarlet  stockings  of  the 
Wife  of  Bath,  the  black  beard  of  the  Sompnour, 
are  sharp,  clear,  and  effective ;  but  they  are  ob- 
vious and  brief.  The  scale  is  limited  to  half  a 
dozen  full  tones  —  scarlet,  green,  gold,  and  the 


THE  REALISTIC   TEMPER  49 

modifications  of  white.  Half-tints  are  unknown, 
and  subtle  combinations  do  not  exist.  In  the  poets 
that  follow  Chaucer,  the  same  deficiency  is  obvious. 
An  occasional  exquisite  and  natural  touch  makes 
us  wonder  all  the  more  at  the  surrounding  barren- 
ness. Here,  for  instance,  are  two  lines  from  that 
lovely  poem,  "The  Flower  and  the  Leafe,"  show- 
ing with  what  delicate  feeling  the  poet  had  ob- 
served the  translucent  effect  of  little,  new  leaves 
against  a  bright  sky. 

"  Branches  brode,  laden  with  leves  new, 
That  sprongen  out  agen  the  sunne-schene, 
Some  very  red,  and  some  a  glad  light  greene." 

But  it  is  the  only  unconventional  touch  in  the 
whole  eighty-five  stanzas,  except  the  original  simile 
applied  to  the  grass :  — 

"  So  small,  so  thicke,  so  shorte,  so  fresh  of  hue 
That  most  like  unto  greene  wool,  I  woot,  it  was." 

Glancing  hastily  through  the  later  lyrists,  we 
find  the  scale  equally  limited,  the  descriptive 
touches  equally  conventional  and  few.  It  is  hard 
to  believe,  judging  from  this  point  alone,  that 
these  men  ever  looked  straight  at  the  shimmering 
hues  of  nature. 

Rich,  sensuous,  impassioned,  the  Elizabethans 
leave  on  our  minds  a  wealth  of  sumptuous  im- 
agery which  criticism  instinctively  characterizes 
as  "highly  colored."  But  when  we  analyze  this 
impression,  and  test  it  by  specific  reference,  it 
evaporates  mysteriously.  Spenser  is  certainly  the 
most  prodigal  author  of  the  time.  His  very  name 
calls  to  the  mind  a  gorgeous  and  brilliant  pageant. 


50     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

But  the  means  by  which  he  produces  this  effect 
is  certainly  not  through  the  use  of  color.  His  scale 
is  the  old  conventional  limited  one;  his  allusions 
are  few  and  commonplace.  In  the  first  book  of 
the  "Faerie  Queene"  there  are  only  ten  color  epi- 
thets. His  only  really  powerful  work  in  this  line 
is  in  the  chiaroscuro  of  which  he  is  a  master. 

If,  then,  in  the  magnificent  style  of  the  Eliza- 
bethans we  find  such  poverty,  it  is  obvious  what 
we  may  expect  from  their  successors.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  the  world  becomes  cold  as  ice 
and  gray  as  ashes.  It  is  positively  wan. 

And  now  let  us  turn  to  our  own  time.  Here  is 
a  stanza  of  Shelley's,  chosen  at  random  from 
"Prometheus  Unbound,"  a  stanza  which  will  also 
illustrate  the  exquisite  use  of  a  scientific  concep- 
tion :  — 

"As  the  dissolving  warmth  of  dawn  may  fold 
A  half -unfrozen  dew-globe,  green  and  gold, 
And  crystalline,  till  it  becomes  a  winged  mist, 
And  wanders  up  the  vault  of  the  blue  day, 
Outlives  the  noon,  and  on  the  sun's  last  ray 
Hangs  o'er  the  sea,  a  fleece  of  fire  and  amethyst." 

We  must  not  linger  over  the  wealth  of  quota- 
tions that  entice  us.  We  can  hardly  open  a  page 
of  modern  descriptive  poetry  which  is  not  aglow 
with  rich  color,  or  suffused  with  delicate,  soft 
tints.  The  extension  of  the  scale  is  no  less  re- 
markable than  the  frequency  of  its  use;  and  the 
fine  accuracy  of  discernment  forms  the  most  strik- 
ing contrast  to  the  broad,  sparing  touches  of  the 
elder  poets.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  bit  from  a 
poet  of  the  second  order,  William  Morris :  — 


DANGERS  AND  SAFEGUARDS  51 

"  The  sun  is  setting  in  the  west ;  the  sky 
Is  clear  and  hard,  and  no  clouds  come  anigh 
The  golden  orb,  but  further  off  they  lie 
Still-gray  and  black,  with  edges  red  as  blood, 
And  underneath  them  is  the  weltering-flood 
Of  some  huge  sea,  whose  tumbling  hills,  as  they 
Turn  restless  sides  about,  are  black  or  gray, 
Or  green,  or  glittering  with  the  golden  flame."  l 

The  increased  definiteness  which  we  notice  in 
this  line  is  characteristic  of  all.  It  would  be 
delightful  to  take  up  the  treatment  of  form,  of 
music,  of  a  hundred  phenomena;  but  we  must 
content  ourselves  with  a  bare  assertion,  of  which 
we  have  simply  suggested  the  proof.  Everywhere 
alike  we  should  find  our  own  poetry  definite  where 
the  old  is  vague,  detailed  where  the  old  is  general. 
This,  then,  is  the  result  of  that  new  reverence  for 
fact,  introduced  by  natural  science,  which  seemed 
at  first  sight  so  mournfully  to  have  curtailed  the 
possibilities  of  poetic  work.  It  has  enlarged  the 
sphere  of  poetry  by  the  introduction  of  a  new 
world  of  subjects;  it  has  trained  the  poetic  vision 
to  a  delicacy  of  perception  before  unknown. 

5.  Dangers  and  Safeguards. 
Thus  in  all  directions  we  find  that  the  change- 
which  has  transfigured  science  has  breathed  also 
upon  our  modern  poetry.  We  started  with  ques- 
tioning the  power  of  the  imagination  to  assimilate 
the  elements  which  form  the  scientific  spirit;  and 
our  analysis  has  resulted  in  an  answer  to  our  ques- 
tion more  satisfactory  than  we  could  possibly  have 

1  The  Earthly  Paradise.     Ogier  the  Dane,  second  section. 


52       SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

foretold.  Science  has  turned  the  eyes  of  poetry 
from  obedience  to  its  own  capricious  fancy  to  the 
willing  and  joyful  service  of  observed  fact.  The 
synthetic  instinct  of  the  imagination  has  been  vin- 
dicated by  the  most  recent  and  deepest  discoveries 
of  scientific  law,  so  that  poets  hereafter  may  em- 
phasize with  a  new  assurance  of  truthfulness  the 
interdependence  of  this  complex  universe.  And 
the  scientific  belief  in  an  ever  active  determining 
energy,  working  through  every  form  of  life,  and 
sweeping  all  things  forward,  has  touched  with 
renovating  power  the  very  soul  of  modern  imagi- 
native thought.  The  formative  ideas  of  science 
have  exerted  over  our  modern  poetry  an  influence 
as  widespread  as  it  is  profound. 

Our  chief  question  has  thus  been  answered. 
But  there  is  another,  which  must  at  least  be  def- 
initely recognized  before  we  close,  though  we  can 
hardly  award  to  it  an  adequate  treatment.  Our 
implied  attitude  has  been  throughout  optimistic. 
We  have  spoken  as  if  the  sphere  of  poetry  would 
be  both  enlarged  and  enriched  by  this  new  power. 
Is  this  inevitably  true?  Is  the  strong  influence 
of  science  an  unmixed  good?  If  so,  it  is  hard  to 
account  for  the  unreasoned  convictions  of  people 
in  general,  and  the  opinion  of  some  real  thinkers, 
that  the  influence  of  science  in  literature  is  at- 
tended by  serious  dangers,  which  tend  insidiously 
to  destroy  the  life  of  poetry  by  robbing  it  of  its 
characteristic  powers.  The  dangers  exist;  no  can- 
did mind  can  ignore  them;  and  their  gravity  is 
measured  by  the  importance  and  vigor  of  their 


DANGERS  AND  SAFEGUARDS  53 

causative  principles.  The  idea  of  force  may  re- 
sult in  the  mechanical  fatalism  which  sees  behind 
the  whole  phantasma  of  existence  no  loving  Will, 
but  an  inert,  impersonal  power.  The  belief  in  the 
essential  unity  pervading  nature  may  level  down 
instead  of  up;  failing  to  raise  the  natural  to  the 
level  of  the  spiritual,  it  may  drag  the  spiritual  to 
the  lower  material  plane,  till  the  physical  aspect 
of  life  engrosses  attention,  and  soul  is  viewed  as 
a  function  of  automatically  active  matter.  The 
love  of  fact  and  the  habit  of  minute  observation 
may  fetter  the  imagination  till  it  lose  its  glorious 
spontaneity  and  give  place  to  an  art  sordid  and 
confined. 

These  dangers  are  not  only  potential  but  actual. 
They  have  entered  into  the  very  depths  of  much 
of  the  poetry  which  already  exists.  Some  of  them 
are  curiously  exemplified  in  the  school  of  poetry 
at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  which  dimly  appre- 
hended and  mechanically  rendered  certain  elements 
in  the  spirit  which  has  produced  our  modern 
science.  But  much  more  strikingly  in  the  poetry 
of  our  own  generation  do  we  find  illustrations  of 
them  all.  A  dismal  fatalism  is  a  note  that  modern 
poetry  too  often  repeats.  In  one  form  or  another, 
it  pervades  much  of  our  otherwise  finest  work. 
Sometimes  the  poet  succumbs  to  it  utterly,  and  his 
work  is  thereby  rendered  comparatively  ineffec- 
tive, whatever  elements  of  power  it  contain.  This 
is  the  case  with  Morris.  Sometimes  he  struggles 
against  it,  and  the  strength  of  his  conflict  gives  to 
his  verse  a  vibrating  vitality.  This  is  the  case 


54     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

with  Arnold,  Tennyson,  Clough,  and  hosts  of  oth- 
ers. Perhaps  of  all  our  modern  poets,  Browning 
is  the  only  one  completely  free  from  this  taint. 
The  second  tendency,  to  drag  the  spirit  down,  is 
too  obvious  to  need  more  than  a  mention.  The 
name  of  Swinburne  is  enough.  As  for  the  third 
danger,  that  the  imagination  may  wither  away, 
it  is  indirectly  evident.  Stupid  poetry  is  not 
unknown  among  us;  but  we  have  nearly  learned 
the  lesson  to-day  that  a  versified  enumeration  of 
facts  is  non -poetic.  Darwin's  "Botanic  Garden" 
and  Fletcher's  "Purple  Island"  are  not  works  of 
this  century;  and  the  chief  instance  in  English 
literature  of  just  this  sort  of  work  is,  curiously 
enough,  the  queer  catalogues  of  Whitman.  But 
the  same  conviction,  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
free  scope  for  the  imagination  since  its  new  mate- 
rial must  be  drawn  from  observed  fact,  is  evi- 
dent in  the  considerable  and  despondent  school 
that  utterly  ignores  subject,  uses  over  and  over 
again  the  old  motifs,  and  devotes  its  entire  atten- 
tion to  elaborating  technique. 

Fatalistic  poetry,  materialistic  poetry,  stupid 
poetry,  —  these  are  all  to  be  found  among  us. 
We  cannot  deny  that  in  a  certain  sense  they  are 
fostered  by  the  principles  of  natural  science. 
Where  shall  be  our  safeguard  against  them  ? 

We  must  look  for  it,  not  without,  but  within. 
We  find  it  in  the  eternal  nature  and  function  of 
true  poetry.  Science  has  nothing  to  say  as  to  the 
nature  of  ultimate  reality.  In  face  of  a  material- 
istic interpretation  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  spirit- 


DANGERS  AND  SAFEGUARDS  55 

ual  on  the  other,  it  remains  entirely  neutral.  But 
the  imagination  is  not  neutral;  it  is  a  spiritual 
faculty.  It  exists  only  as  it  bears  witness  to  the 
reality  of  the  unseen ;  and  so  long  as  the  spiritual 
world  endures,  it  will  continue  to  draw  unfailing 
•  vigor  from  a  source  beyond  itself.  Viewed  in  the 
light  of  its  calm  assurance  of  unseen  truth,  the 
laws  and  ideas  of  which  we  have  spoken  become 
transfused  with  a  spirit  not  their  own.  From  a 
deadening  they  change  to  a  life-giving  influence. 
The  passion  for  Fact  can  never  result  in  the  nar- 
rowing spirit  of  bald  enumeration;  for  the  func- 
tion of  the  imagination  is  to  interpret.  Thus  it 
rejoices  in  the  inexhaustible  material  without,  and 
submits  itself  with  joyous  and  grateful  humility 
to  the  study  of  the  world  of  glowing  wonder  in 
which  the  soul  of  man  is  placed.  The  sense  of 
Unity,  finding  its  home  and  centre  in  faith,  testi- 
fies to  the  infinite  spiritual  significance  of  every 
atom;  thus  it  stands  forth  with  absolute  assurance 
as  the  guarantee  against  isolation,  which  is  death. 
And  the  thought  of  omnipresent  Force  becomes  to 
poetry  a  source  of  never-failing  inspiration,  hope 
and  joy;  for  poetry  knows  that  this  Force  is  God. 

"  I  have  gone  the  whole  round  of  Creation ;  I  saw  and  I  spoke  ! 
I,  a  work  of  God's  hand  for  that  purpose,  received  in  ray  brain 
And  pronounced  on  the  rest  of  His  handwork  —  returned  Him 

again 

His  creation's  approval  or  censure :  I  spoke  as  I  saw, — 
I  report,  as  a  man  may,  of  God's  work  —  All  's  love,  yet  all 's 

law. 

Now  I  lay  down  the  judgment  He  lent  me ;  each  faculty  tasked 
To  perceive  Him.  has  gained  an  abyss,  where  a  dewdrop  was 

•^•- 

OF  THE 


56     SCIENCE  AND   THE  MODERN  POETS 

Have  I  knowledge  ?      Confounded  it  shrivels  at  wisdom  laid 

bare. 
Have  I  forethought  ?     How  purblind,  how  blank,  to  the  Infinite 

Care. 

Do  I  task  any  faculty  highest,  to  image  success  ? 
I  but  open  my  eyes  —  and  perfection,  no  more  and  no  less, 
In  the  kind  I  imagined,  full-fronts  me,  and  God  is  seen  God 
In  the  star,  in  the  stone,  in  the  flesh,  in  the  soul  and  the  clod. 
And  thus  looking  within  and  around  me,  I  ever  renew, 
With  that  stoop  of  the  soul  which  in  bending  upraises  it  too, 
The  submission  of  Man's  nothing  perfect  to  God's  all  complete, 
As  by  each  new  obeisance  in  Spirit  I  rise  to  His  feet."  1 

1  Browning :  Saul. 


II 

WORDSWORTH  AND  THE  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

THE  high  excitement  of  a  new  ideal  and  a  cause 
to  win  is  largely  gone  from  the  scientific  move- 
ment. But  the  march  of  democracy  is  Exponent  of 
only  just  begun,  and  the  fervor  of  un-  order. 
fought  battles  yet  hovers  about  its  disciples. 
Understood  and  in  fair  measure  applied  as  a  poli- 
tical theory,  it  still  waits  realization  as  a  social 
faith  or  an  industrial  solution;  and  the  art  shaped 
by  its  full  power  is  the  art  of  the  future. 

Yet  democracy  in  its  mighty  childhood  con- 
trolled of  course  the  English  poets  from  Blake 
to  Shelley.  Our  later  Victorians  have  ceased  to 
chant  the  praises  of  liberty  and  fraternity,  not 
because  the  words  have  grown  meaningless,  but 
because  as  they  have  passed  into  the  stage  of  slow, 
pathetic  realization,  their  poetical  value  has  be- 
come indirect.  But  the  men  of  the  century's  early 
prime  beheld  a  new  vision ;  and  the  record  of  the 
vision  is  the  poetry  of  the  age. 

Two  poets,  supremely,  reflect  this  vision  for  us 
—  Wordsworth  and  Shelley.  In  their  large  and 
lovely  work,  all  its  lineaments  are  imaged,  and  it 
is  hard  to  tell  which  great  spirit  gives  it  more  per- 
fectly. Wordsworth  is  as  yet,  however,  far  less 


58    WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

trusted  and  understood,  in  this  aspect.  Nor  can 
we  wonder.  For  he  turned  Tory  in  middle  life; 
and  the  ardent  young  champions  of  the  Social 
Democracy  are  inclined  to  despise  him  nowadays 
as  a  lost  leader,  while  they  lavish  all  their  honor 
on  the  flame-like  loyalty  of  Shelley. 

Nevertheless,  take  him  for  all  in  all,  in  his 
spiritual  history  as  well  as  his  poetic  achievement, 
Wordsworth  is  probably  a  better  exponent  than 
Shelley  of  the  democratic  ideal  in  all  its  length 
and  breadth.  In  spite  of  "The  Warning,"  his 
conservatism  was  pure  matter  of  surface  opinion. 
He  grew  despondent  over  the  political  tendencies 
of  the  day;  but  his  very  despondency,  however 
misguided,  had  its  deep  source  in  the  love  of  the 
common  people.  The  radiance  of  his  democratic 
faith  did  indeed  as  he  grew  older  fade  into  the 
light  of  common  day;  yet  those  first  affections, 
those  shadowy  recollections  of  a  divine  glory  once 
shed  on  human  life,  remained  to  the  end  the  mas- 
ter-light of  all  his  seeing,  a  power  to  cherish  and 
to  uphold.  His  poetry  made  incursions  into  stupid 
regions  as  he  grew  older,  and  we  miss  the  old  con- 
centrated intensity  of  phrase.  But  through  mis- 
taken dissertations  on  politics,  as  through  his  glo- 
rified contemplation  of  human  life,  pulses  the  same 
unwavering  interest  and  faith  in  men  and  women 
as  they  are. 

Wordsworth  is  indeed  chiefly  great  as  the  high 
priest  of  the  new  democracy.  His  message  from 
nature  is  wonderful,  but  his  message  from  human- 
ity is  more  profound.  It  is  "thanks  to  the  human 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY  59 

heart  by  which  we  live,"  that  to  him  "the  meanest 
flower  that  blows  can  give  thoughts  that  do  often 
lie  too  deep  for  tears."  His  finer  poems  all  flash 
upon  our  nerves  the  thrill  of  imaginative  awe  in 
the  presence  of  a  flesh-clad  spirit.  It  is  his  love  of 
man,  constant  from  first  to  last,  that  makes  him  a 
spiritual  power. 

Wordsworth  is  not  the  most  intense  genius 
among  the  great  revolutionary  poets,  but  he  is  the 
largest  man.  He  could  understand  his  time  bet- 
ter than  Shelley  for  two  reasons;  he  had  more 
sanity,  and  he  knew  a  more  varied  development. 

Sanity  is  the  finest  thing  in  the  world,  next 
to  passion.  A  perfect  poet  must  have  both,  and 
this  is  how  ^Eschylus  and  Shakespeare  are  per- 
fect. Sanity  is  sometimes  the  stronger  force;  it 
was  so  with  Goethe.  Sometimes  passion  is  the 
stronger;  it  was  so  with  Shelley,  as  with  most 
poets  of  the  revolution.  Wordsworth  unites  them. 
His  passion  is  always  controlled  by  his  sanity,  and 
in  the  poems  by  which  he  chiefly  lives,  his  san- 
ity is  pervaded  by  his  passion. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  much  of  Wordsworth's 
poetry  is  too  sane  to  be  interesting,  for  sanity  lin- 
gered when  passion  had  either  died,  or  sunk  below 
speech.  Yet  sanity  even  by  itself  is  not  to  be 
despised.  Wordsworth  is  one  of  the  poets  who 
are  valuable  not  -  only  by  inspiration  but  by  ideas, 
not  only  by  vision  but  by  experience.  It  is  easy 
enough,  with  Matthew  Arnold,  to  make  fun  of 
his  didacticism,  yet  he  is  a  real  intellectual  force. 
His  entire  product  carries  weight  as  the  direct  and 


60    WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

sincere  expression  of  the  effect  on  a  strong  man  of 
a  great  historic  period. 

Add  the  recognition  that  Wordsworth  was  writ- 
ing from  1789  to  1850,  a  period  of  sixty  years, 
the  most  significant  in  modern  history.  He  did 
not  simply  flash  the  light  of  his  imagination  on 
one  great  idea.  He  grew  up  with  the  revolution 
and  survived  it,  and  knew  in  life  or  rendered  in 
art  all  its  successive  phases.  Surely  it  is  reason- 
able, then,  to  claim  him  as  the  widest  exponent  of 
the  early  democratic  movement.  It  is  the  very 
change  in  his  outlook,  a  change  marked  indeed, 
which  gives  to  his  work,  taken  as  a  whole*,  peculiar 
significance.  But  to  see  how  this  is  so,  how  his 
poetry,  in  its  successive  phases,  is  our  most  sug- 
gestive exponent  of  the  slow  historic  revolution, 
we  must  study  from  first  to  last  the  story  of  his 
development. 

It  is  always  worth  while  to  linger  over  the  start- 
"  Lyrical  ing-point  of  a  poet's  work.  This  comes, 


witb  Wordsworth,  just  at  the  end  of 
promise.  the  eighteenth  century.  In  1798,  he 
and  Coleridge  published  the  tiny  volume  of  "Lyri- 
cal Ballads." 

This  little  book  was  to  the  poetic  revolution 
what  the  taking  of  the  Bastille  was  to  the  historic 
movement:  shock,  challenge,  manifesto.  It  was 
far  more  than  this:  it  was  the  prophecy  of  the 
poetic  achievement  of  an  epoch.  In  that  sad  and 
obscure  decade,  as  in  a  dark  night,  shrouded  by 
storm-cloud,  the  poems  shine  like  a  pure,  faint 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY  61 

line  of  distant  sky,  holding  the  promise  of  the 
coming  day.  All  the  phases  of  modern  poetry  are 
suggested  by  them,  —  romanticism,  alike  external 
and  spiritual,  raised  to  the  highest  power  in  "The 
Ancient  Mariner;  "  unflinching  studies  of  bare  fact 
in  "Animal  Tranquillity  apd^  Decay,"  and  the 
little  peasant-poems;  poetry  of  mystical  and  phi- 
losophical contemplation  in  "Tintern  Abbey." 
Romantic  verse,  realistic  verse,  reflective  verse,  — 
these  were  the  three  chiejxforms  which  our  modern 
poetry  was  to  develop/  Much  of  Wordsworth's 
most  exquisite  work  is  in  this  little  volume,  work 
supreme  in  exalted  simplicity,  instinct  with  the 
buoyant,  delicate  vigor  of  a  youth  intensely  sensi- 
tive yet  ascetically  pure. 

"Lyrical  Ballads"  distills  youthf ulness ;  yet  its 
authors  were  not  very  young.  Keats  at  twenty- 
four  had  flung  his  passionate  life  away  in  song 
and  love,  Shelley  at  twenty-eight  had  but  two 
more  years  to  live,  and  Shelley  and  Keats  alike 
take  the  world  into  their  boyish  confidence  and 
grow  up  in  public.  Not  so  their  more  reticent 
elder  brother.  Wordsworth  was  twenty-eight 
when  he  published  "Lyrical  Ballads."  "Tintern 
Abbey  "  alone  is  enough  to  show  us  that  the  book 
is  no  outcome  of  earliest  youth. 

Traces  of  a  present  struggle  are  indeed  to  be 
found  in  these  pages.  In  the  poem,  "The  Female 
Vagrant,"  still  more  in  that  curious  drama,  "The 
Borderers,"  an  attempt  now  read  only  from  lit- 
erary interest,  we  have  a  glimpse  of  a  strange 
Wordsworth  morbid  and  depressed,  weighed  down 


62    WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

by  the  sorrows  of  life,  drawn  towards  a  diseased 
introspection  and  a  study  of  psychological  anoma- 
lies. In  place  of  simplicity  and  serenity  we  have 
subtlety  and  unanswered  questioning.  The  poems 
are  still  in  the  shadow  of  the  agnosticism  of  disil- 
lusion. It  is  curious  to  read  them,  and  to  remem- 
ber that  many  years  later  a  Victorian  poet  was  to 
resume  the  effort  early  abandoned  by  Wordsworth, 
to  dwell  with  almost  pathological  interest  upon 
the  abnormal  manifestations  of  character,  and  to 
adopt  the  dramatic  rather  than  the  contemplative 
method.  But  the  century  had  a  great  deal  to 
say  before  it  was  ready  for  a  Browning.  Words- 
worth's false  start  was  soon  forgotten,  even  by 
himself,  and  he  first  gained  the  ear  of  the  public 
and  found  his  own  soul  in  poetry  simple  as  eternal 
childhood  is  simple,  wise  with  the  deep  wisdom  of 
utter  peace. 

But  it  is  the  peace  of  conquest,  gravely  pure. 
The  light  of  spiritual  victory,  hardly  won,  rests 
upon  it.  All  the  early  poems  of  Wordsworth 
shine  with  the  radiance  of  a  faith  which  has  passed 
through  death  to  victory  and  knows  the  glory  of 
the  Resurrection.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the 
atmosphere  of  these  brief,  limpid,  perfect  poems  — 
poems  where  a  purely  spiritual  lustre  seems  to 
blend  with  the  quiet  light  of  common  dawn. 
They  are  the  expression  of  emotion  recollected  or 
better  re-collected,  in  tranquillity.  Their  very 
simplicity,  deeply  sympathetic  with  the  heart  of 
childhood,  is  not  of  the  natural  child,  It  be- 
longs to  the  new  birth,  the  childhood  of  the 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY  63 

Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  contrast  is  evident,  if  we 
put  beside  Blake's  "Infant  Joy,"  —  the  pure  stam- 
mer of  a  natural  baby,  — Wordsworth's  "We  are 
Seven,"  —  the  tender  bending  of  a  soul  that  has 
suffered  over  the  innocence  of  a  child  soul  outside 
the  ken  of  loss  or  pain.  A  chastened  spirit,  aus- 
tere though  youthful  still,  here  speaks  to  us ;  and 
the  buoyancy  and  living  joy  of  the  poetry  are  all 
the  clearer  because  they  shine  through  the  limpid 
purity  of  lingering  tears. 

It  is  the  faith  in  the  new  democracy  that  gives 
to  the  book  its  deepest  pathos  and  fullest  power. 
Symbolically  rendered  as  a  universal  principle  in 
"The  Ancient  Mariner,"  this  faith  appears  sim- 
ple, earnest,  and  concrete  in  Wordsworth's  studies 
of  human  life.  Such  brooding  love  of  primal 
humanity  is  of  an  order  never  known  before.  The 
earlier  dramatic  method,  the  satiric  method  of  the 
last  century,  are  both  as  strange  to  the  young 
Wordsworth  as  our  own  method  of  peering  self- 
analysis.  His  attitude  is  all  his  own,  a  tender, 
reverent,  direct  contemplation  of  essential  man. 
The  old  beggar  and  the  child  are  his  chosen  sub- 
jects; creatures  in  whom  not  only  interest  of  sit- 
uation but  interest  of  character  have  vanished 
or  are  reduced  to  lowest  terms.  Wordsworth 
watches  from  a  distance  which  softens  all  that  is 
distinctive  into  one  common  type,  and  blends  the 
figure  into  unity  with  the  wide  world  around.  For 
it  is  man  stripped  more  utterly  than  even  Carlyle's 
Teufelsdrockh  of  all  vesture  of  circumstance,  who 
is  dear  to  his  spirit;  man  in  whom  the  simple  fact 


64   WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

of   absolute  humanity    shines   forth  in  sacredness 
naked  and  supreme. 

No  boy  could  thus  have  written  of  human  life. 
Wordsworth,  when  he  wrote  these  poems,  had 
known  a  great  and  definite  experience.  The  pas- 
sion, the  tumult,  the  struggle  of  his  life  lay  behind 
him  and  not  before. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  talk  as  if  Wordsworth  had 

always  lived  in  a  passionless  seclusion,  untroubled 

by  the  storms  of  deed.     Such  was  the 

rienceXof       choice  of  his  manhood ;  it  was  not  the 

Wordsworth     -  „  .  .  .  .         . 

a  Prophetic    rate  oi  his  youth.     At  the  most  sensitive 

Summary. 

age,  from  nineteen  to  twenty-two,  he 
lived  through  a  tremendous  drama.  The  "Lyri- 
cal Ballads"  were  written  seven  years  after  this 
experience  had  come  to  an  end.  Another  seven 
years,  and  Wordsworth  told  us,  in  "The  Pre- 
lude," the  whole  story.  As  we  read  the  controlled 
and  lofty  verse,  we  see  out  of  how  great  a  struggle 
was  wrested  the  peace  of  his  poems.  We  see  also 
how  large  and  sane  was  his  nature,  and  how  sig- 
nificant, in  relation  to  the  whole  movement  of  the 
times,  is  the  movement  of  his  soul.  From  the 
deep  quietude  of  mountain -heights,  and  the  tran- 
quil routine  of  an  English  university,  to  the 
French  Revolution,  with  its  hopes,  its  horrors,  its 
despair !  What  transition  could  be  sharper  than 
that,  what  experience  more  dramatic?  Words- 
worth did  not  simply  listen  to  the  echoes  of  the 
Revolution  from  afar.  He  was  living  in  France 
during  its  crucial  years,  living  among  men,  some 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     65 

of  them  his  dearest  friends,  to  whom  it  was  matter 
of  life,  sometimes,  alas !  of  death.  To  no  English 
boy,  certainly  to  no  English  poet,  had  such  an  ex- 
perience ever  been  vouchsafed.  The  experience 
was  public,  not  private ;  but  to  a  peculiarly  excit- 
able and  selfless  temperament,  like  that  of  Words- 
worth, such  an  experience  is  far  more  poignant 
than  any  personal  struggle,  unshared  by  the  com- 
mon soul.  We  see,  not  only  in  "The  Prelude," 
but  in  allusions  to  the  very  end  of  his  life,  what 
it  all  meant  to  him ;  how  in  this  period  was  con- 
centrated his  soul-drama,  how  the  outer  movement 
of  the  revolution  was  accompanied  by  a  spiritual 
experience  of  sharp  transitions  and  agonizing  prob- 
lems in  his  young,  poetic  soul. 

His  experience,  as  nobly  described  in  "  The  Pre- . 
lude,"  is  of  deep  interest  in  relation  to  his  own 
later  development ;  from  the  violent  changes  of  this 
period  he  emerged  with  firm  convictions,  never  to 
be  changed  again.  But  the  record  has  an  interest 
even  greater  in  relation  to  the  development  of  the 
poetic  imagination  during  the  whole  century,  under 
the  influence  of  democratic  ideas. 

For  Wordsworth,  as  his  life-history  blended 
with  that  terrible  drama,  and  finally  passed  into 
the  peace  beyond,  was  a  prophet  of  the  age  to 
come.  The  different  phases  of  modern  thought 
and  modern  struggle  find  an  epitome  in  advance 
in  his  experience.  The  more  one  reads  "The  Pre- 
lude," the  more  impressive  grows  not  only  the  sense 
of  the  deep  life  which  preceded  his  poetry,  but 
the  conviction  of  his  representative  character.  In 


66     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

each  stage  through  which  he  passes  he  is  the  proto- 
type of  some  later  poet,  who  stays  in  the  region 
of  thought  which  Wordsworth  leaves  behind. 

At  first,  the  future  poet  of  humanity  was  very 
indifferent  to  man.  He  tells  us  that  even  the 
revolution  did  not  arouse  him.  It  was  art  and 
romance  which  thrilled  his  soul, — a  "painted 
Magdalen,"  a  castle,  or  an  abbey,  dreams  of  olden 
knights  in  the  forest.  This  was  a  brief  phase 
with  Wordsworth;  it  may  recall  the  brief  life  of 
Keats,  to  whom  only  a  thing  of  beauty  was  a  joy 
forever. 

Soon  he  awakened.  The  revolution  entered  his 
soul,  in  its  earliest  phase  of  rapture,  hope,  and 
love.  His  heart  was  all  given  to  the  People, 
and  his  love  was  theirs.  He  shared  the  touching 
superficiality  of  the  time;  its  unreasoning  depen- 
dence upon  reason,  its  cry  for  a  return  to  nature, 
its  large  ideals  and  buoyant,  excited  optimism. 

Wordsworth  knew  this  experience  well;  but  it 
was  not  to  be  his  home.  Probably  it  was  at  this 
time  that  he  was  drawn  towards  anarchical  ideas. 
He  tells  us  how  pure  individualism  attracted  him, 
how  he  dreamed  of  a  society,  ruled  by  instinct, 
where  all  restraints  of  law  should  be  rejected,  and 
man  be  "lord  of  himself  in  undisturbed  delight." 
He  passed  through  these  conceptions  in  thought; 
it  was  not  for  him  to  realize  them  in  poetry.  The 
poet  of  Prometheus,  not  the  poet  of  the  Peddler, 
chants  the  paean  of  man  "king  over  himself." 
Shelley  in  his  exquisite  youth  caught  the  fugitive 
light  of  the  revolutionary  vision,  with  its  large 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     67 

and  nebulous  glory.     He  never,  like  Wordsworth, 
passed  beyond  it ;  he  preserved  it  for  us,  eternal. 

But  the  revolution  did  not  pause.  It  hurried 
forward,  and  Wordsworth  with  it,  out  from  the 
light  of  dawn  into  a  horror  of  great  darkness. 
The  confusion  and  despair  of  the  Reign  of  Terror 
the  poet  touches  but  lightly,  yet  he  lets  us  see  how 
it  haunted  him  by  night,  although  sternly  repressed 
by  day.  In  the  melodramatic  and  material  agony 
of  that  tempestuous  moment,  we  may  catch  at 
least  a  suggestion  of  a  Zeitgeist  akin  to  that  of 
Byron. 

And  here,  the  drama  of  Wordsworth's  life 
separated  itself  from  that  of  the  time,  and  became 
purely  interior  and  spiritual.  He  grew  indiffer- 
ent to  general  hopes  and  the  movement  of  the 
outer  deed.  To  find  a  parallel  to  the  next  phase 
in  his  history,  we  must  pass  from  the  poets  directly 
formed  by  the  revolution  to  those  of  a  later  age. 
It  is  Arnold  and  Clough,  not  Shelley  and  Byron, 
to  whom  Wordsworth  now  becomes  akin.  For, 
outwearied  by  passion,  he  sinks  back  into  subtle 
and  despairing  thought.  A  profound  skepticism 
invades  him;  he  becomes  agnostic  as  to  God  and 
man.  Dragging  all  questions,  metaphysical  and 
moral,  to  the  bar  of  the  reason,  denying  soon  in 
hushed,  frightened  silence  the  validity  of  'that 
reason  itself,  the  disease  of  the  century  is  upon 
him,  the  spirit  of  analysis  that  leads  to  despair. 
How  many  a  later  poet  has  known  this  experience, 
and  has  mourned  with  Wordsworth  in  the  supreme 
spiritual  agony,  —  "  A  sense,  deathlike,  of  treach- 


68     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

erous  desertion,  felt  in  that  last  place  of  refuge, 
his  own  soul!  " 

Many  of  our  modern  poets  have  paused  in  this 
doleful  region.  Not  so  Wordsworth.  He  passed 
slowly  through  it,  to  tranquillity  and  restored 
cheer.  His  nature,  sane  and  strong,  conquered 
at  last  its  heritage  of  faith.  To  this  conquest  he 
was  helped  by  many  agencies.  The  dispassionate 
study  of  natural  science  began  the  cure;  it  was 
continued  by  the  tender  ministries  of  his  sister 
and  of  nature,  and  completed  in  his  renewed  love 
for  real  men  and  women  and  his  deepened  rever- 
ence for  human  life  in  the  concrete.  As  we  read 
the  serene  Wordsworth  of  the  poems,  we  have  a 
prophecy  of  our  latest  experience.  His  emphasis 
on  a  divine  order  foreshadows  to  us  the  subdued 
but  steadfast  faith  of  Tennyson ;  his  deep  convic- 
tion of  the  sacredness  of  separate  lives  leads  the 
way  to  the  spirit  and  method  of  Browning.  Thus 
does  the  spiritual  experience  of  Wordsworth  give 
us  a  prophetic  summary  of  the  whole  sequence  of 
our  poets. 

Only,   then,   when   spiritual   victory  had   been 
won  and  conviction  gained,  did  Wordsworth  enter 
upon   his   poetic  career.      He   had    left 
desypaond-an     behind  the  happy,  passionate  generaliza- 
tions which  belonged  to  the  early  revo- 
lution ;  he  had  left  behind  also  the  disillusionment 
and  world-sickness  of  a  later  time.     It  is  because 
these  things  were  so  fully  known  to  his  life  that 
we  claim  him  as  a  complete  exponent  of  democracy, 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     69 

not  because  they  are  reflected,  as  present  passion, 
in  his  poetry.  His  artistic  starting-point  is  that 
of  the  second,  modern  period  of  democracy  in 
which  we  still  live. 

And  so,  from  his  very  earliest  poems,  Words- 
worth's faith  differs  from  that  of  the  revolution. 

"  Past  and  Future  are  the  wings 
On  whose  support,  harmoniously  conjoined, 
Moves  the  great  Spirit  of  human  knowledge,"  1 

he  exclaims,  in  a  fine  figure.  We  may  truly  say 
that  his  ideal  is  not  revolution,  but  evolution  along 
historic  lines.  Moreover,  he  always  clung  to  the 
religious  basis  of  democracy.  It  is  "in  God's 
pure  sight"  that  "monarch  and  peasant"  are  to 
be  "equalized;"  because  we  are  all  "children  of 
the  God  in  heaven,"  he  believes  in  the  brotherhood 
of  man.  He  always  retained  a  deep  and  tran- 
quil reverence  for  the  faith  of  the  simple  people. 
His  faith,  indeed,  was  one  with  theirs,  and  herein 
he  was  a  better  democrat  than  any  skeptical  son 
of  the  revolution,  or  metaphysical  pantheist,  like 
Shelley.  For  he  never  knew  the  worldly  and 
tyrannical  Church  of  the  cities,  from  which  the 
revolution  revolted.  He  loved  the  little  village 
church  of  his  boyhood,  the  snow-white  Lady,  sit- 
ting on  her  hills  above  the  lake;  and  through 
the  tender  studies  of  the  churchyard  among  the 
Mountains  in  "The  Excursion,"  on  to  the  dreary 
yet  devout  ecclesiastical  sonnets,  his  loyalty  never 
wavered  ;  but  the  Church  in  which  his  deep  affec- 
tion centred  was  that  around  which  gathered  the 

1  The  Prelude,  Book  VI. 


70      WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

life  of  the  poor.  Lastly,  Wordsworth's  concep- 
tion of  freedom  always  divided  him  from  the  revo- 
lution proper.  He  loved  Liberty  with  a  passionate 
love,  but  it  was  liberty  founded  upon  law.  Only 
for  an  instant,  as  we  saw,  was  his  thought  touched 
by  anarchy,  and  this  instant  led  him  to  temporary 
despair.  An  unchartered  freedom  tired  him.  He 
felt  the  weight  of  those  chance  desires  which  Shel- 
ley longed  to  see  masters  of  human  life.  The 
"Ode  to  Duty"  is  an  early  poem,  but  it  empha- 
sizes the  sacredness  of  Law  as  forcibly  as  those 
later  lines  which  bid  us 

"  Be  thankful,  even  when  tired  and  faint, 
For  the  rich  bounties  of  restraint."  l 

His  conception  was  not  mechanical  nor  political. 
It  was  organic  and  spiritual.  A  nation,  to  him, 
was  not  an  aggregate  of  independent  units ;  it  was 
a  living  whole. 

"  As  leaves  are  to  the  tree  whereon  they  grow 
And  wither,  every  human  generation 
Is  to  the  Being  of  a  mighty  Nation,"  2 

he  cried.  And  he  is  sure  to  the  end,  that  no  effort 
after  liberty  can  prosper  which  does  not  spring 
from  a  spiritual  ideal :  — 

"Nor  yet, 

(Grave  this  within  thy  heart !  )  if  spiritual  things 
Be  lost,  through  apathy,  or  scorn,  or  fear, 
Shalt  thou  thy  humbler  franchises  support, 
However  hardly  won  or  justly  dear,  — 
What  came  from  heaven,  to  heaven  by  nature  clings, 
And,  if  dissevered  thence,  its  course  is  short."  J 

i  The  Pass  of  Kirlcstone  (1817).  2  At  Bologna  (1837). 

8  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets.     Part  III.  Sonnet  x. 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     71 

Such  a  passage  shows  the  poet  heart-loyal,  in  his 
last  years,  to  the  high  dreams  of  his  youth. 

Wordsworth's  central  convictions,  then,  never 
alter.  From  his  twenty-fifth  year,  they  hold  con- 
servative elements,  born  of  his  great  struggle;  in 
his  sixtieth  year,  he  is  true  to  his  love  of  freedom. 

Yet  we  all  know  how  painful  a  change  passes 
over  his  later  poetry.  He  loses  his  buoyancy; 
and  the  loss  is  fatal  to  his  inspiration.  The  ear- 
lier poems,  from  1798  to  1806,  are  full  of  spring- 
ing life.  Like  the  pan-pipes  of  Keats,  their  un- 
heard melodies  are  the  sweetest.  Not  audible  to 
the  sensual  ear,  they  pipe  to  the  spirit,  ditties  of 
no  tone.  In  the  later  poems,  this  mysterious 
music  has  vanished.  Wise  thought  is  left,  and 
dignified,  graceful  verse,  but  the  magic  has  fled. 

Now  this  loss  of  buoyancy  is  largely  coincident 
with  a  change  of  poetic  subject. 

Wordsworth  had  been  restored  to  sanity  and 
joy  by  turning  from  philosophical  radicalism  and 
dreams  of  an  ideal  society  to  the  contemplation  of 
men,  women,  and  children.  He  translated  his 
democracy  from  public  to  private  life.  For  twelve 
years,  he  loved  human  beings  and  his  poetry  re- 
vealed them.  Then  came  a  change.  Slowly  he 
turned  away,  and  his  thought  was  drawn  more  and 
more  to  public  life  and  public  questions.  "The 
Excursion  "  is  the  transition  poem  between  the  two 
periods.  Nearly  all  its  poetic  value  is  found  in 
the  grave,  tender,  simple  stories  of  village  life, 
in  Books  VI.  and  VII.  The  discussions  of  Facto- 
ries, of  Education,  of  Church  and  State,  in  the 


72      WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

other  books,  have  a  genuine  value  to  thought 
which  has  not  been  sufficiently  recognized,  but 
they  are  unspeakably  dreary  to  the  imagination. 
As  Wordsworth  insisted  on  writing  about  the  Bal- 
lot, and  Steamboats,  and  Capital  Punishment,  his 
work  became  heavier  and  heavier.  "Peter  was 
dull,  so  very  dull,"  as  the  irreverent  Shelley  cried. 
Yet  public  questions  can  be  treated  with  imagi- 
native fire.  Shelley  so  treated  them,  and  Words- 
worth's own  early  sonnets  on  politics  have  the 
inspired  ring.  If  his  later  poetry  is  dull,  it  is 
because  it  is  sorrowful.  The  prophet  poets  thrive 
on  sorrow.  It  took  Dante  the  exile  to  give  us 
a  "Divine  Comedy."  But  Wordsworth  is  no 
prophet.  Like  Emerson,  he  is  a  seer,  and  the 
seer  nature  is  unable  to  brook  the  pressure  of  a 
present  sorrow.  Quietude  of  spirit  is  essential  to 
his  vision.  Such  quietude,  in  the  interior  life,  he 
maintained  to  the  end.  Among  his  woods  and 
waters  he  lived,  after  he  was  thirty,  an  intensely 
recollected  life,  that  recalls  his  own  lines,  — 

"  With  heart  as  calm  as  lakes  that  sleep 
In  frosty  moonlight  glistening, 
Or  mountain  rivers  where  they  creep 
Along  a  channel  smooth  and  deep 
To  their  own  f ar-off  murmurs  listening."  : 

Only  when  he  turned  to  the  public  questions  of 
the  day  did  his  high  serenity  fail  him.  Looking 
out  upon  national  life,  his  spirit  was  oppressed, 
and  the  oppression  was  fatal  to  his  poetry.  The 
seeming  movement  of  the  times  outraged  his  sensi- 

1  Memory  (1823). 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY    73 

bilities,  offended  his  convictions,  and  destroyed 
his  peace.  "He  grew  old  in  an  age  he  con- 
demned," and  the  dark  prophetic  mantle  of  his 
later  years  weighed  heavily  upon  his  singing-robes 
and  shrouded  them  from  sight. 

Wordsworth  was  a  sorrowful  man,  for  he  was 
ill  at  ease  in  his  own  generation.  But  Wordsworth 

,      „  ii»  j-i         and  a  Social 

betore  we  condemn  his  sorrow  as  the  Democracy. 
mournful,  instinctive  cry  of  the  natural  conserva- 
tive, we  must  look  at  the  generation. 

Wordsworth's  mature  years  covered  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  We  can  see  as 
we  look  back  that  this  period  had  a  sharp  charac- 
ter of  its  own.  It  was  the  heyday  of  individual- 
ism, in  politics  and  industry.  The  modern  world, 
with  its  vast  material  civilization,  its  congestion 
into  cities,  its  ever- widening  separation  between 
classes,  was  swiftly  crowding  the  old  world  out  of 
sight.  In  politics,  the  best  the  time  had  to  show 
was  a  mild  Whiggery  and  the  impulse  of  laissez- 
faire.  Machinery  was  supplanting  hand-labor:  a 
new  industrial  system,  marked  by  fierce,  almost 
unchecked  competition,  was  the  order  of  the  day. 
"Our  age  is  mechanical,"  wrote  Carlyle,  in  1833. 

Such  was  the  epoch  on  which  the  poet  of  the 
"Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality  "  looked 
forth;  a  period  of  curious  barrenness,  spiritual 
and  aesthetic,  coming  between  the  marvelous  and 
fecund  spirituality  of  the  revolution  and  the  spir- 
ituality, perhaps  deeper  because  more  intellectual 
and  more  practical,  of  the  later  Victorian  age. 


74     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

Small  wonder  that  Wordsworth,  child  of  the 
spiritual  revolution,  was  exile  in  this  shallow  age ! 
-The  poet  of  "The  Prelude  "  could  be  only  a  pilgrim 
in  a  time  which  bowed  down  before  the  material 
sublime  in  the  poetry  of  Byron,  before  political 
complacency  in  the  career  of  Macaulay,  before 
religious  respectability  in  the  Bishops  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  Wordsworth's  conscience  and  his 
imagination  alike  revolted.  His  conscience  held 
firmly  that  national  liberty  should  be  founded 
upon  the  moral  law:  he  saw  it  founded  on  what 
Carlyle  a  little  later  called  the  Law  of  the  Shop- 
till.  His  imagination  clung  reverently  to  the  in- 
heritance of  the  past,  and  the  dignity  of  simple 
life;  he  found  traditions  scorned,  and  simplicity 
replaced  by  luxury.  As  soon  as  he  turned  from 
private  to  public  themes,  he  became  wretched. 
He  hated  the  tendencies  of  the  age,  he  execrated 
its  reforms. 

Before  his  death  in  1850,  the  tide,  as  we  now 
know,  began  to  turn.  Far  below  the  surface,  it 
set  in  the  thirties  towards  a  deeper  religion,  in  the 
late  forties  towards  a  new  social  ideal.  But  the 
change  came  too  late  for  the  old  poet  to  note  it. 
The  world,  political  and  social,  was  as  he  saw  it 
given  over  to  materialism.  His  discomfort  brought 
him  not  only  to  a  sweeping  antagonism  to  the  pres- 
ent, but  to  a  harsh  judgment  on  those  hopes  of  the 
past  which  had  lured  people  forth  into  this  evil 
country.  We  all  know  how  political  conservatism 
grew  on  him  in  his  later  days ;  how  he  disliked  the 
"Power,  misnamed  the  Spirit  of  Eeform,"  opposed 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     75 

the  Eeform  Bill  of  '32,  stood  up  for  the  old  Poor 
Law,  and,  in  a  very  bad  sonnet,  called  the  ballot 
a  "pest."  With  the  England  of  his  own  day  he 
was  thoroughly  out  of  touch.  Small  wonder  that 
he  thought  himself  an  out  and  out  Tory,  and  that 
other  people  thought  him  so  too. 

Yet  with  the  genuine  Tory  position,  Words- 
worth, in  the  vital  portions  of  his  thought,  had 
almost  nothing  in  common.  A  reaction  was  at 
hand.  The  "progressive"  ideas  of  the  Whigs  of 
1830  were  to  become,  in  the  next  generation,  the 
stronghold  of  conservatism,  and  the  beliefs  of  the 
old  recluse  of  the  Lakes  come  curiously  near,  in 
certain  ways,  to  the  present  battle-cry  of  the  sons 
of  the  future. 

Wordsworth's  politics  are  of  course  Tory, — Tory 
unmitigated,  Tory  conventional.  But  we  have 
learned  to-day  that  there  is  a  region  of  thought 
on  public  matters  far  more  important  than  poli- 
tics, the  region  of  sociology.  It  is  here  that  his 
thought  is  startling.  For  %the  meek  inherit  the 
earth,  in  his  poetry.  His  opinions  changed,  his 
mood  varied,  his  ideas  on  public  political  questions 
of  the  day  were  often  foolish  enough.  But  that 
great  faith  which  is  permanent  in  his  work  makes 
for  pure  democracy.  This  faith  is  perhaps  more 
of  a  passion  in  the  early  work,  of  a  conviction  in 
the  later ;  but  it  never  wavers.  From  that  noble 
moment  in  his  youth  when  "his  heart  was  all 
given  to  the  People,  and  his  love  was  theirs,"  he 
belonged,  to  use  Lincoln's  fine  phrase,  to  the 
plain  people.  He  not  only  praised  Poverty,  he 


76    WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

practiced  it.     His  respect  for  it  was  a  deep  belief. 
He  would  have  liked  to  see  all  men 

"  Breathing  in  content 
The  keen,  the  wholesome  air  of  Poverty, 
And  drinking  from  the  well  of  homely  life."  1 

The  Return  to  the  People,  that  latest  cry  of  the 
reformer,  sounds  loud  and  clear  through  the  poetry 
of  Wordsworth.  Whether  this  Tolstdy  cry  will 
ever  prove  the  salvation  of  the  people  we  cannot 
say;  at  least,  however,  many  are  proving  it,  in 
practical  experience,  the  solution  of  their  artificial 
miseries.  "Plain  living  and  high  thinking:"  the 
phrase  has  passed  into  a  proverb ;  and  like  many  a 
proverb  becomes  a  bore  to  thought  while  not  yet  a 
blessing  to  practice.  Wordsworth  first  uttered  the 
words  in  an  age  intoxicated  and  stifled  by  mere 
wealth;  he  would  hardly  take  them  back  to-day. 
He  sought  from  the  first,  not  indeed  absolute 
equality  between  man  and  man  —  such  a  Utopia 
never  entered  his  head  —  but  a  voluntary  return 
on  the  part  of  all  right-minded  people  towards 
simplicity  of  life.  He  deeply  honored  the  devel- 
opment of  the  great,  simple,  basal  virtues  among 
the  poor;  patience,  integrity,  the  deep  affection^ in 
all  normal  ties.  Further,  he  honored  work,  *  Even 
manual  work  he  believed  to  be  consistent  with  cul- 
ture and  deep  thought ;  and  here  again  he  comes 
near  to  Tolstoy.  In  his  reverence  for  the  produc- 
tive laborer  as  part  of  the  sad  yet  healthful  order 
of  nature  itself,  he  is  like  Millet;  and  his  many 
visions,  the  Eeaper,  the  Leech-gatherer,  the  Shep- 

1  The  Excursion,  Book  T. 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     77 

herd,  with  their  exquisite  dignity  seem  to  find  com- 
ment and  realization  at  once  in  the  pictures  of  the 
French  artist.  The  same  wide  and  tender  space 
broods  over  their  figures ;  the  same  elemental  and 
typical  grandeur  belongs  to  them ;  they  exhale  the 
same  sense  of  being  not  artificial  products  of  pro- 
cesses apart  from  nature,  but  a  necessary  portion 
of  the  divine  activity  of  the  world.  But  Words- 
worth came  before  Millet.  Never  before  had  the 
Laborer  been  thus  treated,  never  before  had  unaris- 
tocratic  toil  been  so  glorified.  The  choice  of  the 
Peddler  as  the  hero  of  "The  Excursion"  was  in  itself 
a  revolutionary  manifesto  of  democratic  feeling. 
We  see  how  alien  such  a  choice  was  to  the  Zeit- 
geist as  we  find  Lamb,  after  a  comically  lame  de- 
fense of  his  friend's  action,  suggesting  with  appar- 
ent seriousness  that  all  those  to  whom  the  word 
"peddler"  is  offensive  may  in  their  own  mind 
substitute  "palmer"  or  "pilgrim,"  and  so  keep 
the  poetic  harmonies  complete. 

As  Wordsworth  grows  older,  he  grows,  as  we 
have  seen,  more  sorrowful,  and  his  attitude  has 
less  of  sentiment,  more  of  specific  conviction. 
His  despondency  grows  almost  tragic  when  we 
resize*  how  hard  he  strove  to  sustain  the  resolute 
cheerfulness  demanded  by  his  creed.  He  was  no 
Byron,  to  court  effective  agony. 

"  It  were  a  wanton  thing,  and  would  demand 
Severe  reproof,  if  we  were  men  whose  hearts 
Could  hold  vain  dalliance  with  the  misery 
Even  of  the  dead."  1 

1  The  Excursion,  Book  I. 


78     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

The  heart  of  Lucy's  poet  never  held  vain  dalliance 
with  misery.  Yet  his  later  poetry,  in  which  he 
treats  of  national  and  public  life,  is  invaded  by 
gray  sorrow.  The  light  of  the  imagination  is  hid- 
den by  a  thick  mist  of  unillumined  tears.  Never- 
theless, a  landscape  is  often  seen  most  truthfully 
when  the  dazzle  of  the  sunlight  is  veiled;  and 
Wordsworth's  deep  convictions,  permanent  in 
their  main  features,  can  be  learned  with  peculiar 
clearness  from  his  sombre  later  poems. 

He  had  always  deep  sympathy  with  the  sorrows 
and  wrongs  of  the  poor.  This  sympathy  is  the  first 
Wordsworth  expression  of  his  genius  in  his  earliest 

and  Modern  „  TO  • 

industry.  poem,  (jruilt  and  borrow;  it  remains, 
intensified  if  anything,  to  the  very  end.  The  Story 
of  Margaret  in  "The  Excursion,"  Book  I.,  is  a 
good  central  example  of  it.  But  in  later  life  the 
feeling  deepens,  and  becomes  more  and  more  mod- 
ern, till  Wordsworth's  voice  becomes  almost  like 
that  of  a  latter-day  reformer.  For  he  turns  away 
from  the  thought  of  the  peasant  to  the  thought  of 
the  artisan  and  the  mechanic,  and  the  wrongs  which 
oppress  and  sadden  his  serene  old  age  are  those 
which  spring  from  the  present  industrial  system. 
The  ninth  book  of  "The  Excursion"  gives  us  an 
attack,  carefully  controlled  but  deeply  felt,  on  the 
result  of  the  modern  manufactory;  and  it  is  evi- 
dent from  the  whole  course  of  Wordsworth's  later 
writing  how  sorrowfully  his  mind  was  overcast  by 
the  recognition  of  the  vast  mechanical  civilization 
that  was  rising  up  around  him  founded  on  compe- 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY   79 

tition.  He  hated  it  for  two  reasons.  First  was 
its  encouragement  of  the  greed  for  wealth.  He 
has  a  strong  description  of  a  factory,  devoted  to 
the  worship  of  "Gain,  the  master  idol  of  these 
realms."  He  believed  that  with  the  introduction 
of  machinery  and  the  multiplication  of  luxuries, 
peace,  reverence,  and  domestic  virtue  were  fast 
vanishing  from  sight.  Then  he  disliked  the  new 
system  because  it  was  unjust  to  the  workman. 
Wordsworth  was  one  of  the  first,  perhaps  the  very 
first,  to  note  the  slavery  of  the  wage-earner  under 
the  new  system.  This  is  startling,  but  it  is  true. 
His  deep  sympathy  with  the  oppressed,  his  insight 
into  present  problems,  sound  through  the  poem 
"Humanity,"  a  prosaic  but  vigorous  piece  of  writ- 
ing, dated  1829.  "Shall  man  assume  a  property 
in  man?  "  he  cries,  and  goes  on  to  attack  the  senti- 
mental horror  of  distant  slavery  of  the  negro  on 
the  part  of  men  who  live  and  fatten  on  the  profit 
from  the  masses  of  white  slaves  toiling  at  their 
feet.  He  is  at  times  amazingly  modern :  — 

"  Qualified  oppression,  whose  defense 
Rests  on  a  hollow  plea  of  recompense," 

is  pretty  strong  language  for  the  present  system 
of  wages.  The  lines  might  well  be  quoted  by  a 
fin  de  siecle  agitator  in  Hyde  Park.  The  enthu- 
siasm for  political  liberty  seemed  to  him  hollow  and 
sentimental.  He  hated  to  hear  people  even  talk 
of  Liberty,  while  all  the  time,  under  an  individual- 
istic regime,  hosts  of  Englishmen  were  gripped  in 
the  chains  of  industrial  slavery,  changed  into  mere 


80    WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

machines  for  material  production,  and  doomed  to 
lingering  death  of  intellect  and  soul. 

There  is  an  indignant  and  eloquent  description 
of  the  boy-operative  in  the  eighth  book  of  "The 
Excursion: "  — 

"  Oh !  banish  far  such  wisdom  as  condemns 
A  native  Briton  to  these  inward  chains.  .  .  . 
He  is  a  slave  to  whom  release  comes  not 
And  cannot  come.  .  .  . 

His  raiment,  whitened  o'er  with  cotton-dust 
Or  locks  of  wool,  announces  whence  he  conies.  .  .  . 
The  limbs  increase :  but  liberty  of  mind 
Is  gone  forever." 

These  vivid  lines  lead  to  a  discussion  of  the  whole 
Problem  of  Poverty.  Wordsworth  evidently  feels 
that  the  praises  of  poverty  in  his  early  work  may 
to  some  people  seem  inconsistent  with  his  present 
tone.  He  indignantly  replies  that  the  poverty  of 
the  agricultural  poor  is  often  a  spiritual  discipline 
and  a  real  blessing.  It  is  normal,  peaceful,  and 
consistent  with  full  liberty  of  soul.  The  poverty 
of  the  mechanic,  on  the  other  hand,  the  workman 
of  the  cities,  destroys  freedom,  inner  and  outward 
alike.  It  is  stunting  to  body  and  degrading  to 
soul.  Wordsworth  is  very  forcible  on  all  these 
points.  Especially  is  he  roused  to  anger  by  the 
thought  of  the  early  employment  of  children.  It 
is  touching  to  find  the  poet,  who  in  earlier  years 
had  revealed  the  sacred  pathos  of  childhood  and 
the  glory  of  infancy,  pleading  with  grave  ear- 
nestness the  cause  of  the  factory  child.  The  cot- 
tager, he  says,  has  at  least  been  permitted  to 
enjoy  the  dawn;  but  the  artisan  child  of  the  city 


WORDSWORTH  AND    NEW  DEMOCRACY  81 

is  cut  off  from  babyhood  from  the  joy  of  the 
world. 

We  are  ready  now  to  understand  Wordsworth's 
alleged  conservatism.  It  is  his  indignation  against 
the  industrial  system  around  him  which  really 
gives  the  key  to  his  contempt  for  current  politics. 

As  for  escape  towards  a  better  order,  Words- 
worth, poet  not  statesman,  has  little  definite  to 
offer.  He  was  no  Shelley,  to  be  content  with 
abstract  ideals  of  a  regenerate  earth.  Neither  did 
he  belong  to  our  more  recent  age,  when  the  high- 
est imagination  and  purest  idealism  are  devoting 
themselves  to  schemes  of  practical  reform.  He 
grieved  at 

"  the  injustice  which  hath  made 
So  wide  a  barrier  between  man  and  man." 

He  longed  passionately  for  a  deeper  sympathy 
between  classes ;  not  from  the  somewhat  arrogant, 
if  philanthropic,  desire  for  the  good  of  the  poor, 
but  from  clear  and  humble  insight  into  the  needs 
of  the  rich.  He  wished  for  a  stronger  emphasis 
on  Government,  if  only  Government  could  be  wise ; 
and  he  wished  it  to  take  hold  of  education  and  at 
least  to  some  extent  to  control  industry.  He  was 
eager  in  his  demand  for  state  education,  to  give 
all  a  fairer  chance,  that  none  need  be  forced 

"  To  drudge  through  a  weary  life  without  the  help 
Of  intellectual  implements  and  tools, 
A  savage  horde  among  the  civilized, 
A  servile  band  among  the  lordly  free."  * 

1  The  Excursion,  Book  IX. 


82      WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

Curiously  enough,  he  believed  in  the  principle 
of  Trades  Unions,  though  he  feared  their  excesses. 
In  a  note  on  the  Poor  Law  Act,  postscript  to  an 
edition  of  his  poems  of  1835,  he  indorses  the 
principle,  and  pleads  for  the  formation  of  joint- 
stock  companies  among  the  laboring  class.  In 
times  of  crisis,  he  demanded  state  employment 
for  the  workman.  He  says,  in  support  of  this 
demand:  "It  is  broadly  asserted  by  many  that 
every  man  who  endeavors  to  find  work  may  find 
it;  were  this  assertion  verified,  there  would  still 
remain  a  question,  what  kind  of  work,  and  how 
far  may  the  laborer  be  fit  for  it? "  He  goes  on  to 
say  that  men  adapted  to  fine  manual  work  should 
not  be  put,  for  instance,  in  times  of  stress,  to 
stone -cutting,  —  an  idea  which  we  in  these  later 
times  might  well  afford  to  consider.  But  Words- 
worth's most  startling  plea,  reiterated  again  and 
again,  was  for  a  principle  not  only  ignored  at  the 
high  tide  of  competition,  but  subversive  of  all  the 
orthodox  political  economy  of  his  day.  For  he 
pleaded  that,  in  the  conduct  of  industry,  the  wel- 
fare of  the  workman  be  taken  into  account  as  well 
as  the  profit  to  the  employer  or  the  cheapness  of 
the  product.  The  sacrifice  of  the  joy  of  life,  the 
loss  to  thousands,  under  the  present  industrial  sys- 
tem, of  their  human  birthright,  is  to  him  mon- 
strous, and  he  exclaims :  — 

"  Our  life  is  turned 

Out  of  her  course  whenever  man  is  made 
An  offering  or  a  sacrifice,  a  tool 
Or  implement,  a  passive  thing,  employed 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY    83 

As  a  brute  mean,  without  acknowledgment 
Of  common  right  or  interest  in  the  end ; 
•   Used  or  abused  as  selfishness  may  prompt."  l 

He  is  full  of  scorn  for  the  fallacy  that  such 
abuse  of  the  individual  man  and  woman,  and  such 
rank  injustice,  could  ever  be  for  the  advantage  of 
the  whole :  — 

"  Economists  will  tell  you  that  the  State 
Thrives  by  the  forfeiture,  —  unfeeling  thought 
And  false  as  monstrous.     Can  the  mother  thrive 
By  the  destruction  of  her  innocent  sons 
In  whom  a  premature  necessity 
Blocks  out  the  forms  of  nature,  preconsum.es 
The  reason,  famishes  the  heart,  shuts  up 
The  infant  Being  in  itself,  and  makes 
Its  very  spring  a  season  of  decay  ? 
The  lot  is  wretched,  the  condition  sad, 
Whether  a  pining  discontent  survive 
And  thirst  for  change ;  or  habit  hath  subdued 
The  soul  depressed,  dejected  even  to  love 
Of  her  close  tasks  and  long  captivity."  2 

Nothing  could  be  clearer.  Wordsworth  de- 
mands that,  whether  by  state  action  or  the  gradual 
development  of  a  higher  moral  standard,  industry 
be  so  regulated  that  the  workman  be  set  free. 

Looking  at  Wordsworth's  entire  message,  the 
conviction  comes  to  us,  almost  with  a  shock  of 
surprise,  that  he  was  a  pioneer  of  modern  Wordsworth 
thought.  The  respectable  liberalism  of  and  Carl*le- 
his  day  would  have  been  outraged  had  it  been 
capable  of  understanding  the  trend  of  his  mes- 
sage; the  most  advanced  thought  of  this  latest 

1  The  Excursion,  Book  IX.  2  Ibid.  Book  VIII. 


€.s 
OF  THE 
VERSITY, 
U* 


84    WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

hour  hails  that  message  as  prophetic  still.  He 
was  a  political  aristocrat ;  but  he  was  a  social  radi- 
cal. He  defied  all  the  party  labels  of  his  time. 
The  young  reformers  who  despise  him  as  Tory  and 
formalist,  because  of  his  hatred  of  the  political 
gospel  of  his  day,  really  hate  what  he  hated,  and, 
in  great  measure  at  least,  love  what  he  loved.  For 
he  saw  that  democracy  and  freedom,  if  they  are  to 
be  sincere,  must  be  extended  (sometimes  one  is 
almost  afraid  that  he  said  to  himself  transferred) 
from  the  region  of  politics  to  the  social  and  indus- 
trial sphere.  It  was  because  of  their  failure  to 
effect  this  extension  that  he  branded  the  tendencies 
of  his  time  with  scorn,  and  reacted  from  them  in 
sorrow. 

Recall  his  central  cries;  his  constant  appeal 
from  the  Public  to  the  People ;  his  plea  for  a  vol- 
untary simplicity  of  life;  his  deep  reverence  for 
productive  toil  and  for  the  laboring  man;  his 
hatred  of  individualism  in  politics  and  competition 
in  industry.  What  place  had  a  thinker  of  this 
order  in  a  period  of  which  the  most  popular  expo- 
nent was  Lord  Macaulay?  Like  all  individual 
thinkers,  Wordsworth  was  solitary  in  his  thought. 
He  had  little  in  common  with  the  men  of  genius  of 
his  time,  with  Shelley  or  Byron ;  he  had  even  less 
in  common  with  the  men  of  letters  like  Jeffrey, 
or  with  the  statesmen,  like  Brougham  or  Peel. 

And  yet,  had  he  but  known  it,  —  as  he  never 
did,  —  there  was  close  to  him  during  all  his  later 
years  a  man  whose  whole  thought,  especially  on 
social  lines,  was  curiously  like  his  own ;  who  like 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     85 

him  hated  the  party  of  progress  in  his  own  day 
and  deeply  reverenced  the  historic  past,  yet,  like 
him,  went  far  deeper  than  technical  conservatism, 
down  into  depths  of  thought  where  surged  ideas 
subversive  of  the  whole  social  order.  No  men 
could  differ  more  widely  in  temperament  and  in 
gospel  than  Carlyle  and  Wordsworth.  Carlyle 
thought  Wordsworth  a  narrow  prig,  and  the  poet 
of  the  Lakes  apparently  never  read  a  word  from 
the  prophet  of  Ecclef echan ;  yet  in  their  thought 
about  human  life,  the  two  honest  spirits  arrived 
by  different  paths  at  much  the  same  results. 

They  have  an  equal  horror  of  a  civilization 
founded  on  wealth;  and  the  hatred  of  shams,  if 
less  vociferous  in  the  poet,  is  no  less  positive. 
They  hold  the  same  attitude  towards  the  modern 
manufacturing  system  and  its  effect  on  the  work- 
man ;  they  agree  in  honor  for  the  plain  people  and 
the  integrity  of  toil ;  and  voice  the  same  cry  for 
simplification  of  life.  Their  very  religion  is  not 
unlike  in  central  passion;  the  exalted  pantheism 
of  "Sartor  Eesartus"  is  not  far  from  the  note  of 
"Tintern  Abbey,"  and  in  both  writers  pantheism 
is  joined  to  a  stern  faith  in  the  moral  law  and  the 
righteousness  of  the  divine  order.  It  is  perhaps 
their  religion  which  led  them  both  to  that  concep- 
tion of  society  as  an  organic  and  spiritual  whole, 
so  vital  in  each,  so  foreign  to  the  individualism 
of  the  day.  To  realize  such  society,  both  em- 
phasize the  functions  of  government,  and  fer- 
vently demand  an  Aristocracy  of  Worth.  Alike 
in  strength,  they  are  alike  in  what  seems  to  us 


86     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

weakness,  a  distrust  of  the  political  democracy. 
Such  distrust  leads  to  the  phases  of  their  work 
which  we  would  fain  forget;  to  the  worship  of 
brute  force  in  Carlyle,  and  the  institutional  form- 
alism of  Wordsworth. 

Neither  radical  nor  conservative,  as  the  time  un- 
derstood such  terms,  the  positive  thought  of  Words- 
worth was  traveling  straight  in  the  direction  of  Car- 
lyle's;  away  from  all  the  popular  theories  of  the 
day.  But  while  the  lines  of  conviction  run  paral- 
lel, the  lines  of  feeling  intersect.  Carlyle' s  theoretic 
reverence  for  the  past  did  not  prevent  him  from 
seeking  to  slip  it  off  like  an  outworn  garment. 
To  Wordsworth,  the  institutions  of  the  past  still 
held  true  life,  which  could  be  fanned  to  vigor  once 
more.  Their  chief  difference  belonged  to  their 
times  as  much  as  to  their  personalities.  Carlyle  is 
the  prophet  of  work,  Wordsworth  the  high  priest 
of  tranquillity;  the  one  is  the  man  of  action,  the 
other  of  contemplation.  It  is  largely  because 
Wordsworth  is  purely  contemplative  that  he  suf- 
fered so  much  in  later  years;  for  action  is  the 
only  mode  of  joy  in  evil  days.  But  he  never  saw 
this.  His  one  demand  was  for  serenity,  his  one 
impulse  to  flee  the  evil, 

"  Which  he  must  bear,  being  powerless  to  redress." 

In  a  fine  sonnet  called  "Retirement,"  written  in 
1827,  he  defends  his  position :  it  is  the  position  of 
a  man  awakened  to  behold,  but  not  aroused  to  act. 
For  Carlyle's  bitter  soul  there  is  no  serenity:  his 
one  impulse  is  to  fight  till  death.  In  Wordsworth, 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY     87 

the  century  is  becoming  aware  of  a  great  evil,  but 
is  not  yet  ready  for  the  attack ;  in  Carlyle,  the  forces 
are  mustered  and  the  battle-cry  sounds  clear. 

Contemplative  and  poetic,  the  seer  of  the  Eng- 
lish Lakes  differs  indeed  widely  from  the  fiery 
prophet  of  Chelsea.  The  convictions  are  words- 
the  same,  but  the  imagination,  mighty  S^an?"8" 
in  each,  is  of  quite  different  order.  I 
Wordsworth  is  of  closer  kin  to  Carlyle 's  great  dis- 
ciple, Ruskin.  These  two  are  of  one  spiritual 
family,  and  their  conceptions  of  the  social  state 
agree  down  to  minute  detail.  They  are  one  in 
their  emphasis  on  life  in  the  country,  intimate 
with  a  pure  and  lovely  nature,  and  on  the  dignity 
of  agricultural  toil.  There  are  whole  chapters  in 
"Fors  Clavigera"  which  read  like  an  elaboration 
into  practical  schemes  of  the  underlying  principles 
of  Wordsworth's  poems  on  the  Westmoreland 
peasantry.  To  both,  the  dalesmen,  ignorant  in 
mind  and  wise  in  spirit,  with  their  frugal  integ- 
rity, industry,  and  peace,  are  ideal  Englishmen. 
Both  unite  in  longing  that  the  sound  of  the  spin- 
ning-wheel be  once  more  heard  in  the  land. 
Priests  of  beauty,  both  mourn  the  vandalism  of 
the  time,  and  the  destruction  of  monuments  of  the 
past.  Almost  we  can  hear  Euskin's  echo  to 
Wordsworth's  cry  in  his  sonnet  "Lowther:  "  — 

"Hourly  the  democratic  torrent  swells  — 
For  airy  promises  and  hopes  suborned 
The  strength  of  backward-looking  thoughts  is  scorned. 
Fall,  if  ye  will,  ye  Towers  and  Pinnacles, 
^  With  what  ye  symbolize  :  authentic  story 

Will  say  ye  disappeared  with  England's  glory." 


88     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

The  two  men  quite  agree  in  their  estimate  of 
the  modern  industrial  world.  To  both,  the  "man- 
ufacture of  Souls  of  a  good  quality  "  is  of  supreme 
importance,  and  the  present  system  is  scathingly 
denounced  for  ignoring  this  sacred  principle. 

Here  the  greater  thinker  is  with  them.  But 
neither  Ruskin  nor  Wordsworth  shows  the  manly 
recognition  of  stern  fact  native  to  the  son  of  the 
Scotch  peasant.  Neither  is  willing  to  confess, 
with  Carlyle,  the  necessary  permanence  of  certain 
factors  in  the  present  industrial  order.  Their  cry, 
like  his,  is  for  simplification  of  life:  unlike  his, 
it  is  also  for  simplification  of  labor.  Curiously 
enough,  however,  the  old  poet  is  more  "canny" 
on  this  subject  than  the  younger  writer  of  prose. 
Wordsworth  qualifies  carefully  his  abuse  of  a  mod- 
ern manufactory,  gives  us  a  bright  picture  of  the 
good  of  machinery  before  turning  to  its  evil  side, 
and  never  cries  to  an  unhearing  world  to  come 
forth  and  flee  into  the  desert  of  solitude  and  hand- 
labor  quite  so  insistently  as  does  Euskin. 

The  central  thought  of  Wordsworth  and  Ruskin 
is  one.  The  demand  for  joy  —  a  demand  foreign 
to  the  grim  convictions  of  Carlyle,  rough  student 
of  human  history  —  is  at  the  heart  of  their  social 
gospel.  For  the  poet  in  verse  and  the  poet  in 
prose  knew  a  similar  development.  If  nature  and 
man  were  the  early  teachers  of  Wordsworth,  nature 
and  art  were  the  guides  of  Ruskin ;  and  peace  was 
the  childhood's  heritage  of  both.  Their  first  work 
was  to  reveal  the  beauty  they  had  seen,  and  "Mod- 
ern Painters,"  like  the  early  poems  of  Wordsworth, 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY    89 

is  one  long  chant  of  praise.  But  in  middle  life 
both  men  became  aware  that  entrance  into  the 
freedom  of  the  lovely  world  is  denied  to  the  vast 
majority.  Both  then  turned  grave  and  sad,  lost  in 
large  measure  their  winged  fire  of  utterance,  and 
gave  us  "words,  words,  words,"  weighed  down  with 
"the  heavy  burden  of  mortality,"  "the  burthen 
and  the  mystery  of  all  this  unintelligible  world." 
Wordsworth  and  Ruskin  share  in  general  the 
same  soul  history;  for,  akin  in  spirit,  they  are 
swept  onward  by  the  same  movement  of  the  age. 

If  we  proceed  still  further  in  the  sequence  of 
modern  thought,  we  find  another  poet  in  the  same 
line  of  spiritual  descent.  As  Ruskin  is  the  disci- 
ple of  Carlyle,  so  William  Morris  is  the  disciple 
of  Ruskin.  He  differs  utterly  from  Carlyle,  Rus- 
kin, and  Wordsworth  in  all  those  faculties  which 
"look  towards  the  Uncreated,  with  an  eye  of  ado- 
ration, with  a  thought  of  love."  The  spiritual 
eyes  are  closed  in  the  friend  of  Swinburne.  But 
so  far  as  his  sight  is  turned  towards  earth,  Morris 
is  in  the  Wordsworth  tradition.  In  the  hatred 
of  modern  haste  and  ugliness,  in  the  shrinking 
from  the  present  industrial  system,  in  the  love  of 
the  country  as  man's  true  home,  in  the  simplifica- 
tion of  both  inner  and  outward  life  and  the  em- 
phasis on  a  receptive  spirit  as  the  end  to  which 
labor  is  a  means,  Morris  and  Wordsworth  agree. 
But  the  name  of  William  Morris  launches  us  in 
the  full  tide  of  socialism. 

Wordsworth,  of  course,  is  not  a  Socialist.     He 


90    WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

would  have  repudiated  the  term  with  horror,  con- 
Wordsworth  founding  it  with  anarchy.  The  irreli- 
Modemso-  gious  communism  of  Morris  would  have 
been  terrible  to  him.  Yet  we  have  in  his 
poetry  from  first  to  last,  indications,  unconscious 
to  him  but  clear  to  us,  of  that  modern  movement 
which  sets  towards  the  social  democracy.  An 
alien  almost  from  earliest  years  in  his  own  genera- 
tion, he  groped  in  the  darkness  towards  a  better 
day.  The  man  who  wrote  on  the  margin  of  an 
article  ranking  him  as  a  democrat  in  the  old  indi- 
vidualistic sense,  "I  am  a  lover  of  liberty,  but 
am  aware  that  liberty  cannot  exist  apart  from 
order,"  was  not  far  from  the  socialist  kingdom  of 
heaven.  The  practical  propositions  of  his  later 
years  are  at  times  blank  socialism,  as  when,  in  the 
postscript  to  Poems  of  1835,  he  claims  in  plain 
English  "the  right  of  the  people  to  public  support, 
when  from  any  cause  they  may  be  unable  to  sup- 
port themselves."  But  his  fellowship  with  the 
socialist  lies  deeper  than  any  specific  propositions. 
It  is  in  the  whole  trend  of  his  thought,  and  the 
whole  temper  of  his  manhood. 

In  our  outer  world,  Wordsworth  would  find 
himself  no  more  at  home  than  when  he  looked  out 
on  life  from  his  pure  lake  solitude,  sixty  years 
ago.  The  tendencies  which  were  mewing  their 
mighty  youth  around  him  then  are  mightier  in 
maturity  to-day.  Individualism  has  gone  on  con- 
quering and  to  conquer.  In  politics,  industry, 
religion,  it  reigns  supreme.  Our  vast  develop- 
ment of  material  wealth  and  applied  science  makes 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY    91 

the  most  artificial  society  of  his  day  assume  in  re- 
trospect an  almost  Laconian  simplicity.  Around 
him  Wordsworth  would  find  the  intensification  of 
all  that  he  deplored.  But  there  is  an  inner  world 
of  thought,  just  beginning  to  struggle  into  action. 
Every  century  knows  such  a  world;  silent,  dark, 
hidden  from  the  ken  of  the  children  of  the  pres- 
ent; the  world  of  the  children  of  the  future,  to 
be  born  at  the  fitting  time.  And  here  the  poet 
of  "The  Excursion"  would  feel  himself  strangely 
at  home.  Many  of  his  political  views  he  would 
indeed  be  forced  to  surrender,  but  the  deep  and 
vital  convictions  which  were  his  inspiration  through 
youth  and  age  he  would  hear  developed  and  re- 
peated by  voice  of  poet  and  essayist  and  priest. 
In  that  world  of  promise,  he  would  find  himself 
one  of  a  great  brotherhood.  And  this  world,  yet 
secret  but  destined  one  day  to  become  apparent, 
is  the  world  of  socialism.  In  Wordsworth's  con- 
ception of  the  state,  in  his  emphasis  on  govern- 
ment, in  his  correlation  of  law  and  freedom,  we 
trace  socialism  as  philosophy  and  politics.  In  his 
interpretation  of  the  soul  of  the  poor,  his  honor 
for  labor,  and  his  demand  for  a  voluntary  return 
to  the  people,  we  have  the  germ  of  that  higher 
ethical  socialism  which  needs  no  machinery  and 
is  already  anticipating  in  detail  the  work  of  the 
social  revolution. 

The  Socialists  are  all  claiming  Shelley  to-day  as 
their  own :  it  does  not  occur  to  them  to  claim  the 
poet  of  "The  Excursion."  Nevertheless,  Shelley's 
hatred  of  government  and  exaltation  of  impulse 


92     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

bring  him  much  nearer  to  the  anarchical  than  to 
the  socialistic  ideal.  His  faith  is  that  of  the  early 
Revolution :  beautiful  but  childlike,  with  the  note 
of  the  visionary  and  of  the  doctrinaire.  The 
quieter  voice  of  Wordsworth  utters  a  deeper  wis- 
dom. His  serene  and  unostentatious  convictions 
are  in  essence  unconventional  and  radical  as  the 
most  startling  opinions  of  Shelley ;  his  insight  into 
the  modern  problems  of  sorrow  is  as  deep  and  sad ; 
his  hints  at  solution,  if  less  dazzlingly  absolute,  are 
in  the  line  of  more  actual  and  feasible  develop- 
ment. Wordsworth  inspires  to  less  hopefulness 
for  humanity,  but  perhaps  to  a  greater  reverence 
for  man. 

Yet  one  star  differeth  from  another  star  in 
glory.  In  the  social  renaissance  which  our  cen- 
tury is  witnessing,  Wordsworth  and  Shelley  are 
both  prophets  and  pioneers.  It  matters  not  a 
whit  that  Wordsworth  sneered  at  Shelley  and  that 
Mary  Shelley  has  in  her  journal  a  delightful 
entry:  "S.  and  I  read  'The  Excursion.'  Much 
disappointed.  He  is  a  slave."  The  two  great 
spirits  never  apprehended  each  other,  but  we  can 
apprehend  them  both.  The  poet  of  "The  Excur- 
sion "  and  the  poet  of  "Prometheus"  bear  the 
standard  of  the  future  side  by  side. 

Two  great  forces,  each  seeking  freedom,  were 

Phases  of       held  in  the  democratic  ideal  when  it  first 

itena2llal      appeared.      One  was  individualism.      It 

felt  the  sacredness  of  each  separate  life, 

and  held  for  creed  the  right  of  every  man  to  free 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY    93 

and  full  development.  The  other  was  socialism. 
It  felt  the  sacredness  of  the  collective  life,  and 
held  for  creed  the  common  duty  of  moving  towards 
the  free  harmony  of  the  perfect  social  state. 

In  the  wide-sweeping  vision  of  the  poets  of  the 
revolution,  the  two  factors  coexist:  neither  is 
fully  developed.  We  have  but  to  remember 
Wordsworth's  reverent  treatment  of  a  Michael,  a 
Leech -gatherer,  a  Lucy,  to  realize  his  imaginative 
worship  for  each  separate  human  soul;  yet  we 
have  but  to  compare  these  figures,  serene  types  of 
universal  humanity,  with  a  Caponsacchi,  or  even 
an  Enoch  Arden,  to  realize  how  short  a  distance 
differentiation  has  gone.  The  great  sonnets  to 
Liberty  and  Order  alone  would  show  us,  on  the 
other  hand,  how  keenly  Wordsworth  was  touched 
with  the  passionate  sense  of  the  collective  life. 
All  his  poetry  pulsates  with  this  sense.  To  Brown- 
ing, family  and  state  form  a  simple  background 
for  the  intense  personal  drama;  in  Wordsworth 
they  control  experience,  and  suppress  all  alien 
passion.  When  conscience  and  family  loyalty 
conflict,  as  in  the  "White  Doe  of  Eylstone,"  there 
is  naught  left  for  a  Francis  or  an  Emily  but  miser- 
able, high  endurance.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  inex- 
orable sense  of  duty  to  the  whole,  the  conception 
of  society  in  Wordsworth  is  primitive  in  the  ex- 
treme, the  distinct  collective  consciousness  scarcely 
developed.  Individualism  and  socialism  are  held 
together,  but  held  in  embryo,  in  the  imagination 
and  passion  of  Wordsworth. 
\  But  the  cry  of  the  individual  life  proved  the 


94     WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY 

stronger.  The  development  of  a  democratic  in- 
dividualism has  absorbed  our  energies.  In  public 
and  industrial  life  the  results  have  been  hideous ; 
in  poetry  they  have  been  great.  If  individualism 
has  produced  a  competitive  industry,  it  has  also 
produced  "The  King  and  the  Book." 

Its  process  is  complete  and  its  last  word  has 
been  said.  Already,  as  a  theory,  it  is  becoming 
a  thing  of  the  past.  Our  Victorian  poets  were 
its  singers  and  interpreters.  Great  was  its  glory ; 
but  it  is  a  glory  fled.  Already  socialism  is  emerg- 
ing from  the  hidden  world  of  thought  to  the  world 
of  act.  We  wait  the  poet  of  the  New  Era,  who 
shall  sing  the  cause  of  labor,  the  unity  of  the 
race,  the  high  society  to  be.  He  must  sing,  not 
with  the  simple,  unconscious  faith  of  Wordsworth, 
not  with  the  nebulous  passion  of  Shelley,  but  with 
a  grave  and  deeper  knowledge  born  of  later  times. 
Shall  he  herald  that  fair  society  of  the  future? 
Shall  he  but  hail  it  when  it  comes?  We  cannot 
tell,  for  he  is  not  yet  among  us.  So  far,  social- 
ism has  no  poet  but  Morris,  whose  voice  is  too 
faint  to  carry  far. 

The  era  of  Wordsworth  and  Shelley  was  the 
day  of  prophecy,  serene,  comprehensive,  and  high. 
The  era  of  Browning  was  ^the  day  of  competition 
and  bitter  struggle,  each  man  battling  alone  for 
Truth,  for  Wealth,  for  Lovfe. 

A  new  world  is  upon  us.  In  thought,  in  pas- 
sion, in  legislation,  it  is  making  its  way.  In  the 
presence  of  this  new  world  the  imagination  is 
silent  still,  listening  to  a  yet  distant  harmony. 


WORDSWORTH  AND  NEW  DEMOCRACY    95 

The  time  will  be  when -the  music  will  roll  nearer, 
and  those  will  not  be  wanting  who  shall  have 
power  to  hear  it  and  to  repeat.  Far  and  faint  in 
the  distance,  we  dream  of  yet  another  poet:  the 
poet  of  the  new  synthesis,  who  shall  chant  at  once 
men  and  the  race.  Of  his  unimagined  music,  the 
exquisite  notes  of  Wordsworth  may  be  the  pure 
faint  spirit  echo,  before  the  times  are  come. 


m 

IDEALS   OF   REDEMPTION,  MEDIAEVAL  AND  MODERN 

ONE  great  order  of  literature  gives  us  life  indi- 
Dante,  vidualized ;  this  is  realistic  art.  Another 

Spenser,  .  _  .      .      . 

and  sheiiey.  gives  us  hie  essential :  this  is  ideal  art. 
For  both  orders  we  return  thanks. 

We  are  fortunate  in  possessing  three  great  sym- 
bolic poems  which  express  the  attitude  towards 
spiritual  truth  of  three  great  periods. 

The  "Divine  Comedy"  of  Dante,  finished  in 
1320,  holds  as  in  a  crystal  sphere  the  light  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Just  after  Dante,  this  light  passed 
into  the  differing  glory  of  the  Kenaissance.  In- 
deed, the  Italian  critic  Carducci  claims  that 
Dante  was,  even  in  his  own  time,  a  man  of  the 
past.  Certainly,  it  is  a  civilization  "matura  ed 
intera  "  which  in  its  completeness  shapes  and  suf- 
fuses the  sacred  poem. 

The  "Faerie  Queene  "  of  Spenser,  finished  in 
1596,  is  the  perfect  expression  of  that  period  from 
which  Dante  recoiled  with  prescient  repugnance, 
—  the  Renaissance.  But  it  is  the  Renaissance 
spiritualized  which  Spenser  gives  us,  —  the  English 
Renaissance,  offspring  of  two  great  movements, 
the  Reformation  and  the  New  Learning.  These 
two  movements,  religious  and  secular,  united  to 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  97 

shape  the  transition  from  the  Middle  Ages  to  the 
modern  world.  Separated  on  the  Continent,  they 
are  fused  with  strangely  fascinating  result  in  the 
work  of  the  English  poet  —  Protestant  of  the  Pro- 
testants, steeped  in  classical  lore,  and  controlled 
by  a  sensuous  passion  for  beauty. 

The  "Prometheus  Unbound"  of  Shelley,  writ- 
ten in  1819,  flashes  on  our  eyes  another  vision, 
the  vision  of  the  Revolution,  the  sunrise  of  the 
modern  world.  Behind  it  lie  the  civilizations  of 
Dante  and  Spenser,  before  it  stretches  the  world 
of  to-day.  The  drama  faces  East;  yet  all  its 
promise  is  charged  with  memories,  "low,  sweet, 
faint  sounds,  like  the  farewell  of  ghosts,"  recall- 
ing the  elder  world. 

The  Middle  Ages,  the  Renaissance,  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  here  are  three  noble  periods.  Great  is  the 
gift  which  their  three  sons  have  left  us.  For  in 
these  poems  we  may  study  the  distinctive  life  of  all 
these  periods,  —  its  passion,  its  problem,  its  inspi- 
ration, and  its  aim. 

Shelley  is  perhaps  the  least  of  the r poets,  lind 
the  Revolution  is  certainly  the  least  of  the  peri- 
ods.  Dante  is  the  greatest,  not  only  among  these 
three  poets,  but  perhaps  among  all  Christian  writ- 
ers. The  revolutionary  ideal  expressed  by  Shelley 
lasted  in  its  integrity  for  a  comparatively  brief 
span  of  time,  while  the  majestic  ideal  of  Dante 
was  the  unmoved  shelter  of  centuries.  Moreover, 
even  during  the  short  time,  less  than  a  hundred 
years,  when  revolutionary  conceptions  reigned 
supreme,  they  did  not  reign  alone.  In  Dante's 


98  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

day,  there  was  one  ideal.  In  Shelley's,  the 
ideals  were  many.  The  modern  complexity  was 
upon  us,  and  conflicting  dreams  of  salvation  were 
hurtling  one  another  in  the  air.  It  was  impossi- 
ble for  any  one  man  to  reflect  such  an  age  in  its 
entirety ;  it  was  especially  impossible  for  Shelley, 
the  child  of  his  age,  its  prophet,  if  you  will,  but 
not  its  guide. 

The  "Prometheus  Unbound"  is  then  a  work  of 
far  less  significance  than  the  "Divine  Comedy." 
It  is  the  work  of  a  smaller  man,  in  a  smaller 
period,  and  it  does  not  even  render  that  period 
completely.  But  this  period  is  our  own ;  at  least, 
it  leads  directly  into  our  own  and  its  faith  leaps  in 
our  veins  to-day.  Shelley,  moreover,  though  a 
lesser  genius  than  Dante,  is  a  genius  both  exqui- 
site and  great,  and  the  "Prometheus"  is  a  great 
poem.  Since  then  the  drama  is  the  best  exponent 
we  have  of  the  revolutionary  faith,  let  us  put  it 
by  the  side  of  its  great  forerunner.  If  from  time 
to  time  we  turn  for  illustration  to  the  great  poem 
of  the  transition  period,  the  "Faerie  Queene," 
we  may  gain  fuller  light  on  the  movement  of  life 
through  the  centuries. 

A  simple  phrase  covers  what  we  are  to  compare, 
the  Ideal  of  Redemption.  For  by  this  ideal,  the 
distinctive  energies  and  character  of  an  age  are 
determined. 

The  poems  are  all  allegorical,  or,  to  use  a  better 
word,  symbolic.  The  form  of  the  story  varies,  of 
course,  in  the  three. 

Dante,  wandering  in  the  wood  of  life,  beset  with 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  99 

perils,  is  met  by  Virgil,  human  knowledge,  whom 
Beatrice,  heavenly  wisdom,  has  sent  to  be  his 
guide.  Virgil  leads  him  through  Hell  and  Pur- 
gatory, showing  him  the  "perduta  gente"  and 
souls  content  in  the  purifying  flame  because-,  of 
the  Hope  of  Glory.  On  the  summit  of  the  Mount 
of  Purgatory,  Beatrice  meets  him,  "dolce  guida  e 
cara."  By  the  light  in  her  eyes  she  lifts  him 
upward,  through  the  spheres  of  glorified  spirits, 
till  he  is  shown  the  mystic  Rose  of  the  Blessed, 
and  attains  at  last  unto  the  Beatific  Vision  of  the 
Most  High. 

Spenser,  less  mystical  and  contemplative,  breath- 
ing in  an  age  of  adventure  and  action,  pictures 
the  spiritual  experience  of  man,  not  as  a  journey 
but  as  a  warfare.  It  is  the  battle  of  noble  knights 
against  evil  and  distress.  He  planned  twelve 
champions,  representing  the  twelve  moral  virtues, 
but  the  protagonist  of  the  poem  is  Arthur.  The 
sum  of  excellence,  he  moves  through  the  enchanted 
realm  a  vague,  radiant,  and  wistful  figure,  in  search 
of  that  Faerie  Queene  of  spiritual  glory  beheld 
by  him  in  dream  alone.  As  he  wanders,  filled 
with  yearning  for  the  vision,  he  is  the  champion 
of  all  the  knights,  righting  evil,  succoring  the  op- 
pressed, consoling  the  sorrowful.  The  poem  is 
not  finished ;  and  Gloriana  within  the  limits  of  the 
"Faerie  Queene"  is  never  found. 

To  Dante,  the  struggle  of  life  is  pilgrimage ; 
to  Spenser,  it  is  warfare ;  to  Shelley,  it  is  endur- 
ance. Prometheus,  representative  and  champion 
of  mankind,  himself  pure,  is  yet  the  thrall  of  evil. 


100  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Tyranny,  in  requital  for  his  benefits  to  man,  has 
fastened  him,  helpless,  upon  the  cliff  of  torture, 
where,  patient  and  sinless,  he  hangs  as  the  gen- 
erations pass.  Sister  spirits,  Faith  and  Hope, 
watch  at  his  feet.  He  resists  all  temptations  to 
flesh  and  spirit,  and  his  forgiveness  of  his  enemy 
is  the  signal  of  his  redemption.  Asia,  his  be- 
loved, the  Spirit  of  Love  and  Nature,  is  awakened 
from  a  remote  dream,  follows  a  mystic  summons, 
and  by  contact  with  Demogorgon,  the  Spirit  of 
Eevolution,  saves  Prometheus.  He  is  liberated 
from  his  chains;  his  dethroned  foe  melts  into 
naught;  and  he  reigns  victorious,  united  to  his 
love,  over  a  peaceful  earth. 

Shelley's  story,  though  his  own,  is  of  course 
modeled  on  the  -ZEschylean  myth,  while  the  sources 
of  Dante  and  Spenser  are  essentially  Christian  and 
medieval.  For,  strong  though  the  classical  ele- 
ment be  in  both  poets,  it  comes  to  them  through 
Christian  tradition,  and  blends  with  the  Christian 
scheme  of  action.  '  The  Hellenism  of  Shelley  is  of 
a  new  order.  He  is  the  forerunner  of  that  neo- 
pagaiiism,  which,  all  through  our  modern  English 
poetry  f  since  the  religious  revolution,  has  instinc- 
tively sought  to  escape  Christian  influence,  and 
return  to  classic  forms. 

There  are  other  broad  initial  distinctions  to  be 
drawn  between  our  three  poems.  The  "Divine 
Comedy  "  has  a  passionate  personal  interest  lack- 
ing to  Spenser  and  to  Shelley.  Its  action  is 
remote  from  earth  and  time;  it  takes  place  in  a 
spiritual  eternity;  while  on  this  earth,  though  in 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  101 

the  realm  of  Faerie,  the  knights  of  Spenser  bat- 
tle, and  Prometheus  hangs  on  an  earthly  cliff.  In 
scene,  then,  in  form,  and  source,  the  three  poems 
differ  widely.  Yet  deeper  than  their  difference 
lies  their  likeness.  Their  central  unity  of  theme 
gives  us  the  right  to  compare  them.  Through 
varying  symbols  they  tell  the  same  story,  the  story 
of  the  human  soul,  as  it  moves  from  passion  to 
peace. 

And  indeed,  the  differences,  as  we  look  at  them, 
seem  in  a  measure  to  melt  into  thin  air.  The 
hero  of  the  "Divine  Comedy"  is  Dante,  Parallelsin 
lover  of  Beatrice,  hater  of  Florence;  but  thePoem«- 
with  even  more  intense  reality,  he  is  the  Soul  it- 
self in  its  strange  wandering.  The  scene  of  the 
poem  is  literally  the  after  world,  but  the  adven- 
tures befall  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  in 
truth  certain  though  hidden,  the  whole  action 
takes  place  within  that  mind  of  man  wherein  are 
the  abyss,  the  mountain,  and  the  stars.  Under 
the  varying  forms  of  story,  the  sequence  of  ex- 
perience is  the  sajne.  In  the  early  portions,  the 
poems  present  evil,  under  its  various  aspects;  in 
the  centre,  the  process  of  redemption;  towards  the 
end,  the  final  triumph  and  the  attained  glory. 
These  three  phases  are  somewhat  mingled  in  the 
"Faerie  Queene,"  but  in  the  " Prometheus "  and 
the  "Divine  Comedy"  they  are  clearly  consecu- 
tive. The  first  act  of  the  "Prometheus  Unbound  " 
is  the  "Inferno"  of  Shelley.  It  is  the  great  act 
of  the  torture  of  Prometheus,  and  is  overshadowed 


102  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

by  the  murky  wings  of  furies.  Act  II.,  Love's 
pilgrimage  of  redemption,  is  Shelley's  version  of 
the  journey  up  the  purifying  Mount.  In  Acts  III. 
and  IV.  we  have  the  final  triumph,  and  the  vision 
of  the  end.  The  spiritual  sequence  in  the  two 
poems  is  the  same,  and  the  imagery  of  each  sug- 
gests, though  with  wide  differences,  that  of  the 
other. 

In  all  the  poems  there  are  three  dominant  inter- 
ests, and  these  interests  are  identical. 

First,  the  pure  interest  of  the  story.  Utterly 
unlike  as  the  legends  are,  they  all  hold  and  charm 
the  reader  by  a  spell  that  cannot  be  broken  even 
if  no  occult  meaning  occurs  to  the  mind. 

The  second  interest  may  seem  strange  to  us; 
yet  it  is  not  only  strong,  but  at  times  controlling. 
It  is  political.  The  pure  idealist  is  popularly 
supposed  to  care  little  for  earthly  affairs.  Such 
thought  is  folly.  The  pure  idealist  is  always  a 
man  with  a  throbbing  consciousness  of  his  own 
time.  These  three  idealists  quiver  with  political 
passion.  The  only  wholesome  influence  left  to 
the  wicked  souls  steeped  in  the  deathful  life  of 
Hell  is  a  flickering  interest  in  the  affairs  of  their 
native  town.  This  might  be  assigned  to  their  bes- 
tial earthliness;  but  when  Dante  is  uplifted  into 
Paradise,  lo!  the  celestial  spirits  too  are  talking 
of  the  sins  of  Florence.  Politics  is  the  one  inter- 
est found  in  every  sphere.  Dante's  bitter  resent- 
ment of  the  evil  of  his  city  fills  him  with  fever 
and  introduces  the  note  of  tumult  even  in  the  midst 
of  heavenly  peace.  In  his  supreme  moment,  the 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  103 

moment  when  the  whole  Heavenly  Society  is  shown 
to  him,  there  flashes  upon  his  soul  the  vision  of  his 
earthly  city,  and  with  the  reticence  of  terrible  and 
haughty  irony  he. cries:  — 

"  IQ,  ched  era  al  divino  delP  umano, 
Ed  all'  eterno  dal  tempo  vemito, 
E  di  Fiorenza  in  popol  giusto  e  sano, 

Di  che  stupor  doveva  esser  compiuto !  "  l 

Spenser  is  akin  to  Dante,  though  his  passion  is 
less  compact  of  flame.  His  political  allegory. is 
elaborate;  the  "Faerie  Queene"  is  full  of  political 
characters  and  of  .ecclesiastical  allusions.  Shelley 
is,  curiously  enough,  poorest  of  the  three  in  direct, 
detailed,  contemporary  interest;  yet  he  models  his 
whole  drama  on  the  form  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  its  spirit  sounds  in  every  line*  The 
political  outlook  of  Shelley  is,  however,  as  might 
be  expected,  the  exact  reverse  of  that  of  the  older 
poets.  They  are  aristocrats  and  conservative;;  the 
child  of  the  revolution  is  anarchist.  The  supreme 
longing  of  both  Dante  and  Spenser  is  for  a  pure 
Church  in  a  well  -  ordered  State.  The  supreme 
longing^of  Shelley  is  for  the  overthrow  of  Church 
and  State  alike. J  Dante's  good  is  Shelley's  bane, 
but  political  and  social  passion  burn  as  strongly  in 
the  modern  dreamer  as  in  the  mediaeval  seer. 

But  deeper  than  story,  deeper  than  the  political 

1  I  who  to  the  divine  had  from  the  human, 
From  time  unto  eternity  had  come, 
From  Florence  to  a  people  just  and  sane, 
With  what  amazement  must  I  have  heen  filled ! 

Paradiso,  xxxi.  37-40. 


104  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

interest  of  the  poems,  lies  that  which  makes  them 
one.  It  is  the  spiritual  interest.  (The  conflict  of 
the  human  soul,  —  this  was  the  one  fact  of  supreme 
importance  to  Dante,  to  Spenser,  to  Shelley. 
Their  three  great  protagonists  meet  the  agony  of 
life  and  wring  from  the  agony  triumph. 

Pain,  expiation,  glory,  —  under  this  threefold 
experience  life  is  conceived  in  every  century. 
But  the  centuries  differ  in  their  thought  of  the 
source  of  the  pain,  the  nature  of  the  expiation, 
the  meaning  of  the  glory.  Let  us  compare  our 
three  poems,  and,  finding  wherein  the  modern  poem 
gains  and  wherein  it  loses,  we  shall  possess  a 
deeper  insight  into  the  value  of  that  interpretation 
of  human  life  by  which  we  have  been  shaped. 

The  problem  and  the  protagonists.  What  is  to 
The  Prob-  ^e  achieved,  and  who  are  the  heroes  that 
achieve  it?  The  problem  first. 

In  the  "Divine  Comedy"  it  is  clear:  the  purifi- 
cation of  the  soul.  The  action  of  the  poem  cen- 
tres in  Dante.  .  Not  as  a  mere  spectator  does  the 
Florentine  pass  among  these  strangely  living 
shades.  Through  the  vision  of  horror,  struggle, 
and  peace,  his  great  and  sorrowful  spirit  is  draw- 
ing near  to  God.  We  gain  hints  of  the  necessity 
of  expiation  at  the  very  beginning,  where  Dante 
tells  us  that  he  has  wandered  from  the  "  diritta 
via,"  and  strives  in  vain  to  climb  the  Holy  Hill. 
In  the  clear  and  tender  light  which  at  the  base  of 
the  Mount  of  Purgatory  gladdens  the  eyes  of  the 
poets  escaped  from  the  dead  air  of  Hell,  Virgil 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  105 


bathes  his  cheeks,  soiled  with  the  hue  of  sin,  in 
purifying  dew  and  girds  his  thighs  with  a  humble 
reed;  and  weighed  down  by  guilt,  but  "seeking 
liberty,"  Dante  climbs  the  severe  height.  .Upon 
his  forehead  ,are  inscribed  the  seven  Peccavis, 
which  only  the  scaling  of  the  mountain  can  re- 
move. On  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  in  the 
Earthly  Paradise,  his  Beatrice  comes  to  him;  she 
greets  him  with  scathing  words,  marvelous  in  aus- 
tere loveliness.  He  has  been  false  to  her  :  — 

"  E  volsi  i  passi  suoi  per  via  non  vera 
Immagini  di  ben  seguendo  false, 
Che  nulla  promission  rendono  intevva. 

"  Tanto  giu  cadde,  che  tutti  argomenti 
Alia  salute  sua  eran  gia  corti, 
Fuor  che  mostrargli  le  perdute  genti."  1 

Deeply  penitent,  the  lover  of  Beatrice  is  drawn 
through  the  rivers  of  Lethe.  Free  now  from  sin, 
his-  soul,  gentle  and  adoring,  is  lifted  into  the 
celestial  light;  and  mounting  upward  and  up- 
ward, drawn  by  his  Lady's  smile,  becomes  at  last 
worthy  to  receive  the  greatest  of  the  Beatitudes, 
the  blessing  of  the  Pure  in  heart.  The  Purifica- 
tion of  the  Soul!  This  is  the  true  theme  of  the 
sacred  poem. 

1  And  into  ways  untrue  he  hurried  his  steps, 
Pursuing  the  false  images  of  good, 
That  never  any  promises  fulfill  ; 

So  low  he  fell,  that  all  appliances 
For  his  salvation  were  already  short, 
Save  showing  him  the  people  of  perdition. 

Purgatorio,  xxx.  130-138. 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Very  different  is  the  theme  in  Spenser.  It  is 
objective,  militant,  the  routing  of  the  powers  of 
wrong.  The  knights  conquer  indeed  the  evil  in 
their  own  hearts^  and  there  as  a  subjective  side  to 
the  allegory ;  but  u\  is  subordinate  and  occasional, 
and  the  chief  emphasis  falls  on  the  battle  of  the 
Church  with  the  Devil  and  the  World.  In  every 
book,  some  great  enemy  is  overcome.  The  Dragon, 
Satan,  Acrasia,  worldly  pleasure,  Busirane,  the 
lord  of  evil  love,  the  Blatant  Beast  of  slander, 
the  impersonations  of  injustice,  all  yield  before 
the  pure  spears  of  the  knights.  Beside  these,  and 
hosts  of  minor  foes,  all  through  the  poem  the  great 
Paynim  forces  of  unbelief  are  gathering  for  final 
conflict,  against  the  spiritual  knights  of  Faerie. 
The  clash  of  this  great  conflict  Spenser  was  never 
i\  to  give  us;"  but  the  ideal  in  his  mind  is  clear  from 
Q/  I  the  beginning :  the  overthrow  of  the  foes  of  God 
I  by  the  consecrated  might  of  the  Church  Militant. 

Shelley,  like  Dante,  lacks  the  militant  element. 
It  is  through  endurance  and  contemplation,  not 
through  action,  that  salvation  is  to  be  wrought. 
But  the  poem  of  the  revolution  differs  at  heart 
from  that  of  the  fourteenth  century.  In  Dante, 
the  purification  of  the  soul  is  the  one  thing  needful, 
its  liberation  is  the  supreme  longing  of  Shelley. 
To  the  modern  poet,  jnan  is  innately  good,  and 
purity  is  not  a  result  but  an  instinct.  Evil  is 
foreign  to  the  very  nature  of  Prometheus.  En- 
slaved by  social  and  religious  convention,  in  the 
shape  of  Jupiter,  the  representative  of  humanity 
hangs  impotent  upon  the  cliff:  — 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  107 

"Monarch  of  Gods  and  daemons,  and. all  spirits 
But  One,  who  throng  those  bright  and  rolling  worlds 
Which  thou-and  I  alone  of  living  things 
Behold  with  sleepless  eyes  !  regard  this  Earth 
Made  multitudinous  with  thy  slaves,  whom  thou 
Requitest  for  knee-worship,  prayer  and  praise 
And  toil,  and  hecatombs  of  broken  hearts 
With  fear,  and  self -contempt  and  barren  hope  — 
Whilest  me,  who  am  thy  foe,  eyeless  in  hate 
Hast  thou  made  reign  and  triumph,  to  thy  scorn 
O'er  mine  own  misery  and  thy  vain  revenge."  l 

By  the  force  of  Revolution,  man  is  at  last  set 
free.  Demogorgon,  representing  the  reaction  to 
which  overweening  tyranny  always  gives  birth, 
casts  the  oppressor  down :  — 

"  Ai,  Ai, 

The  elements  obey  me  not  —  I  sink 
Dizzily  down,  ever,  forever  down, 
And  like  a  cloud  mine  enemy  above 
Darkens  my  fall  with  victory."  2 

Strength  cuts  the  bonds  of  Prometheus,  Love 
and  Man  are  united,  and  the  great  drama  of  revo- 
lution ends.  The  overthrow  of  tyranny  has  been 
its  all-commanding  theme.  The  aim  of  Dante  is 
holiness ;  but  the  aim  of  Shelley  is  freedom. 

The  difference  in  problem  mirrors  the  difference 
in  the  age.  Dante's  was  a  time  of  religious  con- 
templation; Spenser's  a  time  of  adventure;  Shel- 
ley's a  time  of  revolution.  Of  necessity,  Dante's 
highest  ideal  was  the  attainment  of  the  Beatific 
Vision,  Shelley's  the  destruction  of  authority; 
while  the  superb  objectivity  of  the  Renaissance 
could  not  be  more  strikingly  evident  than  in  its 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  I.  2  Ibid.  Act  III. 


108  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

power  to  turn  towards  the  world  of  outward  activ- 
ity the  thought  of  a  poet  naturally  contemplative 
as  Dante,  mystical  as  Shelley. 

•-!/ 

If  we  turn  from  problem  to  protagonist,  a  like 
difference  strikes  us.  The  hero  of  the  "Divine 
TheProtag-  Comedy  "  is  Dante  the  Mystic;  the  hero 
of  the  "Faerie  Queene"  is  Arthur  the 
Knight;  the  hero  of  the  "Prometheus  Unbound" 
is  Prometheus  the  Rebel. 

It  would  be  hard  to  exaggerate  the  significance 
of  this  new  appearance  of  the  Rebel  as  typical  and 
honored  hero.  ^Eschylus  and  Milton  may  indeed 
feel  for  him  an  instinctive  sympathy,  but  neither 
dares  avow  it,  and  the  elder  Titan  and  Satan  are 
both  conscientiously  condemned.  In  Shelley,  the 
rebel  is  not  only  recognized,  but  recognized  with 
pride.  " ^rometheijs-is,  as  it  were,"  writes  the 
poet  in  his  preface,  "the  type  of  the  highest  per- 
fection of  moral  and  intellectual  nature,  impelled 
by  the  purest  and  the  truest  motives  to  the  best 
and  noblest  ends."  Bound  helpless  to  the  rock, 
the  Titan  hurls  defiance  at  the  sun :  — 

"  I  laugh  your  power  and  his  who  sent  you  here 
To  lowest  scorn :  pour  forth  the  cup  of  pain." 

It  is  rebellion  quintessential,  at  its  highest  and 
purest,  which  Shelley  gives  us. 

Of  these  three  heroes,  regarded  as  characters, 
Dante  is  by  far  the  most  vivid.  Reside  the  pas- 
sionate virility  of  his  haughty,  humble  soul,  the 
knights  of  Spenser  are  mere  painted  shadows,  and 
Shelley's  Prometheus  hangs  upon  his  rock  as  much 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  109 

a  puppet  as  the  great  figure  of  wood  which  repre- 
sented the  Titan  upon  the  Athenian  stage.  This 
difference  is  largely  due  to  the  deeper  personal  in- 
terest inherent  hi  the  "Divine  Comedy; "  we  shall 
always  care  less  for  Humanity  than  for  a  man. 
But,  though  a  collective  conception  must  always 
be  a  little  cold,  it  need  not  be  empty.  Shelley 
claims  to  have  eliminated  from  his  hero  the  taints 
which  stain  Milton's  Satan  and  the  Greek  Prome- 
theus, and  he  is  right;  his  ideal  is  faultless.  Into 
it  he  has  poured  all  the  qualities  which  he  ima- 
gines as  factors  in  the  perfect  life.  They  are  not 
many;  Prometheus  is  simple;  a  brief  list  of  ab- 
stract qualities,  and  we  are  done  with  him.  He 
is  lofty  of  spirit,  forgiving  towards  enemies,  un- 
touched by  sin,  nobly  firm  in  the  rejection  of  evil 
or  compromise,  patient  through  suffering,  filled 
with  compassion  and  with  universal  love.  All 
these  traits  are  shown  to  us  in  verse  of  sweetest 
harmonies.  To  what  result?  We  place  beside 
Shelley's  faultless  Titan  the  ashen  Florentine, 
with  tight-set  lip  and  the  sign  of  sin  on  his  fore- 
head, and  straightway  human  life  becomes  a  holier 
thing.  For  the  greatness  of  the  human  soul  is  to 
be  measured  less  by  the  qualities  it  possesses  than, 
by  the  resistance  it  has  overcome.  The  majesty 
of  Prometheus  springs  from  his  resistance  of  tyr- 
anny without;  but,  having  no  foes  to  fight  within, 
he  suggests  vacuity.  Dante  has  sinned,  therefore 
he  is  lower  than  Prometheus;  he  feels  penitence, 
and  therefore  he  is  higher.  He  knows  experi- 
ences into  which  the  elemental  Titan  of  Shelley  can- 


110  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

not  enter;  the  rapture  of  pardon,  the  blessing  of 
humility,  the  might  of  worship. 

Into  the  mediaeval  protagonist  has  passed  the 
passion  of  generations;  into  the  hero  of  the  mod- 
ern poet  have  passed  the  theories  of  his  author. 
The  scope  of  emotion  is  vastly  greater  in  the  older 
poem.  Prometheus  cannot  hate ;  Dante  is  supreme 
as  a  hater.  If  the  modern  attitude  seem  the 
higher,  we  must  remember  that  the  charity  of 
Prometheus  finds  its  source  in  his  fatalism.  '  To 
Shelley,  the  sense  of  moral  responsibility  is  a 
shadow ;  Dante  passes  with  silent  scorn  souls  that 
have  chosen  evil  for  their  God. 

Even  in  the  qualities  they  share,  in  the  power 
of  a  great  love  and  an  unbounded  compassion  that 
is  in  them,  the  citizen  of  Florence  towers  above 
the  rival  of  the  Gods.  "L'amor,  che  muove  il 
sol  e  1'  altre  stelle,"  illumines  the  soul  of  Shelley 
as  of  Dante.  But  the  love  of  Prometheus  is  a 
benevolence  monotonously  diffused ;  it  is  perilously 
near  that  travesty  of  passion  which  men  call  phil- 
anthropy. Dante's  love  is  organic,  human,  varied. 
His  ideal  discipleship  to  Virgil,  his  loyal  honor 
towards  that  "true  topaz,"  his  crusader  ancestor, 
his  tender  courtesy  to  sweet  Piccarda  and  indeed 
towards  all  the  souls  of  the  Blessed,  above  all  his 
kindling,  childlike,  heroic  love  for  Beatrice,  —  all 
this  we  have  and  more,  of  delicate  shading  and 
wide  variety,  to  set  beside  Prometheus'  elemental 
and  characterless  emotion.  The  contrast  is  most 
marked  when  we  turn  to  that  subtlest  form  of 
love,  compassion.  A  ma|es^ic_asdjanfailing  pity, 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  111 

\^6  are  told,  js  thfl  Tray  note  oJLthft-nafoira  of  Pro- 
metheus.  But  we  never  see  it  active,  and  it  is 
brought  home  to  us  by  no  sense  of  reality.  Hardly 
a  word  of  compassion,  on  the  other  hand,  passes 
the  white  lips  of  Dante;  and  there  are  readers 
who,  misled  by  his  silence,  conceive  his  sternness 
as  cold.  But  his  pity  speaks  in  other  ways  than 
words.  Take  an  example.  Nothing,  probably, 
is  harder  for  the  modern  reader  of  the  "Divine 
Comedy"  to  tolerate,  than  the  return  of  Virgil, 
"sweetest  father,"  to  the  gray  light  "  where  with- 
out hope  men  live  on  in  desire."  Dante  utters 
no  word  of  remonstrance.  Virgil  vanishes  at  the 
approach  of  the  celestial  procession  which  he  may 
not  behold,  and  his  disciple's  sense  of  personal 
loss  is  instantly  checked  by  Beatrice.  As  we  wax 
indignant  over  this  seeming  heartlessness,  sud- 
denly music  fills  our  ears,  the  songs  of  the  holy 
guard  of  Beatrice.  The  music  which  has  sounded 
up  the  Mount  of  Purification  has  been  drawn 
exclusively  from  Scripture  or  the  canticles  of  the 
Church.  Here  is  a  new  note:  "Manibus  date 
lilia  plenis,"  a  secular  strain  among  the  sacred 
songs.  O  Virgil,  winding  thy  sad  way  down  the 
mountain,  hearest  thou?  Thy  tenderest  song  upon 
angelic  lips !  God  is  just.  From  the  Paradise  of 
light,  thou  must  return  to  Limbo-shadows.  But 

O          ' 

on  the  Holy  Mount  of  God   the  angels  sing  thy 
songs.     True  poet,  art  thou  content? 

Prometheus  is  an  abstraction,  Dante  is  a  sum- 
mary. Prometheus  is  man  as  dreamed  by  a  poet. 
Dante  is  man  as  created  by  God.  And  the  thought 
of  God  proves  the  greater. 


112  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Having  studied  problem  and  protagonist,  let  us  go 
Ethical  further.  What  is  the  ethical  scope  of  the 
scope.  poems  ?  What  our  modern  loss  and  gain  ? 

The  word  by  which  we  must  name  the  central 
evil  in  the  mediaeval  poem  is  not  popular  nor 
modern.  Sin,  to  Dante,  is  a  desperate  fact.  It 
is  not  arrested  development.  It  is  not  imperfec- 
tion. It  is  not  an  unfortunate  accident  of  blood. 
Nor  is  it  weakness.  Many  weak  souls  are  in 
Paradise,  and  there  is  a  hideous  strength  to  some 
of  the  wicked  in  Hell.  Sin  is  deliberate,  horrible 
choice  of  self  rather  than  God.  We  feel  the  force 
of  it  in  the  vicious  malice  of  the  lost,  we  feel  it 
yet  more  strongly  in  the  mighty  impulse,  equal  to 
the  past  impulse  towards  wrong,  which  keeps  the 
souls  in  Purgatory  of  their  own  free  will  within 
the  blessed,  torturing  flames. 

Sin  presents  itself  to  Dante  under  many  aspects ; 
but  it  can  never  be  confused  with  virtue.  At 
the  outset  of  his  experience,  he  is  confronted  by 
three  foes ;  the  panther  of  Lust,  the  lion  of  Pride, 
the  wolf  of  Avarice.  Descending  into  the  Abyss, 
he  beholds  the  sinners,  all  in  apportioned  places, 
classified  and  fixed.  Downward  he  passes,  through 
the  evil  herds,  —  the  lazy,  the  unbaptized,  those 
who  sinned  through  love,  the  greedy,  prodigals, 
misers,  the  sullen,  heretics,  the  violent,  the  fraud- 
ulent, traitors.  In  Purgatory,  as  he  climbs  from 
terrace  to  terrace,  he  leaves  behind  on  each  ter- 
race those  who  are  expiating  some  one  of  the 
seven  deadly  sins.  The  cosmogony  of  Wrong  is 
known  to  Dante  as  the  chambers  of  a  house  might 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  113 

be.  Towards  sin  and  pain  his  attitude  is  one  of 
shuddering  recognition,  of  occasional  compassion ; 
of  utter  passiveness.  The  decrees  of  God  are 
fixed,  and  to  itself  each  soul  must  live,  or  die. 
The  experience  of  the  hero  in  the  "Divine  Com- 
edy "  is  direct,  not  sympathetic.  Of  the  effort  to 
redeem  there  is  nothing,  nay,  of  the  impulse  to 
redeem  no  trace.  The  sole  exception  is  in  the 
prayers  offered  for  the  souls  in  Purgatory.  The 
justice  of  God,  solemn,  immutable,  is  a  constrain- 
ing law.  We  cannot  doubt  that  Dante,  in  record- 
ing the  vision  vouchsafed  him  by  the  Spirit  of 
Truth,  was  moved  by  more  than  the  overmaster- 
ing impulse  to  create ;  surely  his  desire  was  set  to 
convince  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of 
judgment.  But  so  far  as  the  action  of  the  poem 
is  concerned,  it  centres  in  the  salvation  of  his  own 
soul  alone.  He  accepts,  with  deep,  speechless 
sorrow,  yet  seemingly  with  no  instinct  to  bring 
succor,  the  agony  which  he  beholds.  Doubtless 
profound  reverence  keeps  him  silent.  Yet  one 
can  imagine  no  modern  man  passing  through  those 
piteous  shades  without  at  least  one  heart-wrung 
cry:  "Would  God  I  had  died  for  thee!"  The 
austere  silence  of  Dante  is  for  a  reader  of  to-day 
the  most  awful  thing  in  the  Inferno. 

To  Spenser  as  to  Dante,  sin  is  the  central  ter- 
ror of  life ;  but  the  aspect  of  sin  has  changed.  It 
is  no  longer  definite,  hideous,  obvious.  It  comes 
—  how  to  a  poet  of  the  renaissance  could  it  come 
otherwise?  —  with  a  fair  face,  disguised  in  forms  of 
sanctity  and  beauty.  It  is  baneful  chiefly  because 


114  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

deceitful,  and  the  most  terrible  falls  of  the  knights 
come  from  their  inability  to  distinguish  good  from 
ill.  The  holy  aspect  of  Archimago,  the  appealing 
loveliness  of  Duessa,  the  glorious  calm  of  Lucif  era, 
these  are  the  temptations  to  be  met  by  simple, 
sturdy  honor.  In  the  confusion  of  the  conflict, 
spears  and  shields  are  exchanged,  the  champions 
take  friends  for  foes.  Falsehood  glides  into  the 
place  of  Truth,  and  the  clear  light  of  God  seems 
at  times  quite  obscured. 

Yet  if  we  have  less  clearness,  we  have  more 
freedom.  The  poet  of  the  renaissance  takes  us 
into  a  world  of  adventure,  where  the  knights  fight 
evil  and  subdue  it,  relieving  suffering  and  slaying 
sin.  To  escape  into  this  free  earth,  where  the 
forces  of  man  join  the  forces  of  God  in  the  move- 
ment towards  redemption,  brings  intense  relief 
after  the  air,  still  though  pure,  of  the  "Divine 
Comedy." 

In  part,  these  differences  must  be,  since  Dante 
presents  the  unchanging  truth  of  the  eternal 
spheres,  while  with  Spenser  we  are  in  this  lower 
world  of  glamour,  strife,  and  hope.  Yet  the  vary- 
ing attitudes  are  significant  also  of  the  spirit  of 
the  times. 

Sharp  temptations  men  might  meet  in  the  age 
of  Dante,  but  there  was  no  confusion  between 
good  and  ill.  They  might  depart  from  the  ideal, 
they  could  not  deny  it.  On  the  one  side  a  right- 
eous life,  loyalty  to  the  Catholic  faith,  Paradise, 
on  the  other  contumacy,  self-indulgence,  sin,  the 
City  of  Dis,  the  flames  and  ice  of  Hell.  Such 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  115 

were  the  alternatives,  unswervingly  distinct,  which 
the  vision  of  the  medieval  poet  beheld. 

Turning  to  Spenser,  a  strange  consciousness 
comes  over  us.  What  is  this  haunting  sense,  this 
breath  borne  to  us  from  afar?  It  is  the  modern 
world  that  draws  near.  We  feel  the  approach  of 
confusion  and  doubt;  at  the  same  time  a  prophecy 
seems  cast  backward  of  a  new  freedom  and  of  a 
wider  hope,  which  the  distant  future  shall  reveal. 

In  the  "Faerie  Queene  "  we  feel  an  approach; 
in  the  "Prometheus  Unbound"  we  hail  a  pres- 
ence. The  modern  world  is  full  upon  us.  It 
moulds  our  thought,  shapes  our  struggle,  and  de- 
termines our  victory. 

Despite  all  differences,  the  ethical  attitude  of 
Spenser  and  Dante  is  essentially  the  same.  Not 
so  in  the  poem  of  the  revolution.  The  very  action- 
centre  of  life  is  changed,  for  sin  is  gone. 

Disbelief  in  moral  evil  was  part  of  the_  creed 
of  Shelley's  day.  Ket  self -conquest,  btwfrebellion  x 
against  authority,  is  the  achievement  of  Prome- 
theus. The  Titan,  we  know,  is  sinless.  He  is 
permitted  indeed  to  feel  evil  impulses,  the  sad 
inheritance  of  the  race,  but  not  for  one  instant  do 
these  invade  the  calm  citadel  of  his  being.  True 
exponent  of  its  time,  the  poem  knows  no  evil  which 
is  not  accident,  and  the  resistance  of  tyranny  is 
the  crowning  virtue. 

The  estimate  of  the  moral  value  of  this  attitude 
will  depend  on  personal  conviction.  But  concern- 
ing the  aesthetic  value,  there  can  hardly  be  two 
opinions.  Shelley  loses  in  eliminating  Sin  from 


116  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

his  picture  of  human  life  all  that  a  painter  would 
lose  in  eliminating  his  deepest  shadow,  —  relief 
and  variety.  In  poignancy  of  pathos  and  search- 
ing horror  the  modern  poem  is  weak  beside  the 
"Divine  Comedy." 

But  there  are  two  directions  in  which  it  gains 
both  truth  and  force.  It  has  first  a  widening 
consciousness  of  the  nature  of  the  human  struggle. 
Shelley  recognizes  what  no  older  poet  ever  knew, 
the  insidious  and  profound  danger  of  doubt.  Evil 
allures  with  its  beauty  the  knights  of  the  renais- 
sance, but  the  central  difference  between  true  and 
false  is  never  for  an  instant  denied.  Truth  may 
array  herself  in  alien  garb,  yet  she  is  truth  for- 
ever. Of  the  modern  agnosticism  which  questions 
her  very  existence,  Spenser  knows  nothing.  Far 
less  is  it  known  to  Dante.  The  foe  whose  unseen 
icy  presence  forces  men  to-day  back  from  the 
doors  of  action  and  faith,  never  haunted  the  dreams 
of  the  Florentine.  His  panther  of  shining  hide, 
his  wolf  and  lion,  are  of  another  breed  from  this 
phantom-creature,  born  of  chaos.  The  definite- 
ness  of  mediaeval  vision  is  lost  to  us  forever.  To 
choose  the  Good  was  the  struggle  of  Dante;  to 
find  the  Good  is  our  struggle  to-day. 

An  adequate  vision  of  this  great  modern  sorrow 
Shelley  does  not  give  us.  He  wrote  near  the 
beginning  of  modern  life,  when  the  rapture  of 
emancipation  was  still  stronger  than  the  pain  of 
unlimited  question,  when  doubt  seemed  privilege 
rather  than  punishment,  and  its  depths  were  still 
unknown.  Nevertheless,  with  prescient  spirit,  he 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  117 

makes  doubt  the  very  source  and  centre  of  his 
Titan's  pain.  Not  the  physical  agony  of  glacier 
and  vulture,  not  the  separation  from  his  beloved, 
not  the  consciousness  of  injustice,  are  the  climax 
of  the  torture  of  Prometheus.  But  when  the 
Furies,  daughters  of  darkness,  overshadow  him 
with  shapeless  wings,  when  they  whisper  to  him 
that  truth  is  not,  that  self-sacrifice  curses  where 
it  would  bless,  that  good  is  mockery,  and  high 
ideals  are  illusions  deepening  the  central  horror  of 
existence,  then  it  is  that  his  pure  spirit  quails, 

"  Dost  thou  boast  the  clear  knowledge  thou  wakenedst  for  man  ? 
Then  was  kindled  within  him  a  thirst  which  outran 
These  perishing-  waters  :  a  thirst  of  fierce  fever, 
Hope,  love,  doubt,  desire,  that  consume  him  forever."  l 

So  cry  the  Furies ;  and  the  victory  of  Prometheus 
is  in  resisting  not  sin,  but  doubt;  in  retaining  his 
faith  in  truth,  though  history,  reason,  intuition 
seem  to  strengthen  the  great  world -lie. 

We  shall  find  deeper  recognition  than  Shelley's 
of  this  great  problem  and  agony  of  Doubt.  But 
the  "Prometheus  Unbound"  is  the  drama  of  be- 
ginnings, and  we  hear  through  all  its  glorious 
melody  that  a  new  sorrow  has  entered  the  world. 

A  new  sorrow,  and  a  new  passion.  Through 
every  line  of  the  poem  throbs  a  passion  ignored  by 
Dante,  faintly  adumbrated  by  Spenser,  the  domi- 
nant spiritual  force  of  the  modern  world,  the  pas- 
sion to  redeem.  Call  it  what  you  will,  —  altruism, 
socialism,  or  the  plain  sense  of  brotherhood,  —  this 
is  the  gift  of  democracy  to  poetry  and  to  life. 
1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  I.  - 


118  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Look  back  through  the  great  world-poems,  and 
see  the  changing  attitude  towards  the  wide  human 
misery.  It  is  hardly  recognized  in  Homer,  where, 
beyond  the  normal  human  pathos,  wholesome  and 
pure,  life  is  too  alive  to  stay  for  question.  It  is 
recognized  in  Dante,  but  with  repudiation  or  si- 
lence, and  a  heightened  sense  of  the  need  of  indi- 
vidual purity.  It  is  recognized  fully  by  Shake- 
speare, but  the  impulse  is  to  flee  before  it. 

"  Tired  with  all  these,  for  restful  death  I  cry," 

is  the  Hamlet-temper.  Even  in  Spenser,  the  im- 
pulse to  save  is  as  yet  but  semi-conscious.  Evil 
is  crushed,  not  converted,  and  the  attitude  is 
rather  militant  than  redemptive. 

But  through  the  "Prometheus  Unbound,"  as 
through  all  our  modern  poetry,  rings  a  new  cry. 

"  I  would  fain 

Be  what  it  is  my  destiny  to  be, 
The  saviour  and  the  strength  of  suffering  man, 
Or  sink  into  the  original  gulf  of  things," l 

murmurs  the  great  Titan,  exhausted  with  his  pain. 
It  is  the  woe  of  the  world,  the  woe  of  the  world, 
that  presses  upon  his  weary  soul.  Helpless  he 
hangs, 

"  While  his  beloved  race  is  trampled  down 
By  Jove's  thought-executing  ministers." 

Latent  in  Dante,  semi-conscious  in  Spenser,  the 
new  passion  has  risen  into  consciousness  at  last. 
Dante  saves  himself.  Prometheus  seeks  to  save 
mankind.  Whence  comes  the  new  impulse,  if  not 
from  the  new  freedom?  To  the  objective  religious 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  I. 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  119 

fatalism  of  Dante  we  must  ascribe  the  pure  indi- 
vidualism of  his  attitude;  to  the  quickened  faith 
in  collective  human  power,  emphasized  by  the 
revolution,  we  owe  the  modern  movement  towards 
the  uplifting  of  the  race.  Son  of  the  revolution, 
true  exponent  of  his  time,  Shelley  denies  the  fact 
of  sin,  and  therein  he  loses".  But  in  his  conscious- 
ness of  altruism  and  of  doubt  he  signals  the  era  of 
to-day,  and  therefore  we  hail  him  prophet. 

We  have  thought  of  the  problem  and  the  pro- 
tagonists, we  have  compared  the  scope 


-     ,  i  T     J  1       1  bolsofSal- 

01  the  poems.     .Let  us  look  now  at  the  vation. 
symbolism  through  which  deliverance  is  wrought. 

Looking,  we  discover  the  loveliest  likeness  be- 
tween the  three  great  poets.  In  all,  salvation 
comes  through  women,  and  these  women  are  at 
once  the  instruments  of  redemption  and  the  ideal 
of  the  perfect  life.  Spenser's  Gloriana  never 
appears  upon  the  scene,  but  we  may  truly  estimate 
his  thought  and  vision  from  the  beautiful  First 
Book  which  is  as  it  were  a  microcosm  of  all  the 
"Faerie  Queene."  Beatrice,  "loda  di  Dio  vera," 
Una,  heavenly  maid  ;  Asia,  the  very  Light  of  Life, 
they  are  the  stars  that  guide  the  three  protago- 
nists, centres  of  their  hearts  and  of  the  poems. 
They  purify,  and  they  reveal.  They  represent 
the  highest  that  their  poets  know.  To  compare 
their  nature,  the  parts  they  play,  their  relation  to 
their  lovers,  will  initiate  us  deep  into  the  faith  of 
the  three  ages. 

In   each  case,   dramatic   action   centres  in  the 


120  IDEALS    OF  REDEMPTION 

separation  between  the  woman  and  her  beloved, 
and  reunion  leads  to  final  triumph.  In  Dante 
and  Spenser,  the  separation  comes  from  the  fault 
of  the  lovers.  St.  George,  through  an  error  of 
judgment,  is  deceived  into  thinking  Una  false 
to  him,  and  puts  Duessa  in  her  place.  Dante, 
through  deeper  sin  of  heart  .and  will,  is  himself 
false  to  his  Heavenly  Lady,  when  in  dying  she 
has  "changed  her  life,"  and  grown  perfected  in 
beauty.  Prometheus  and  Asia  are  separated, 
through  no  fault  of  theirs,  by  the  cruel  wrill  of 
Jove.  All  three  protagonists  are  weakened  and 
helpless  while  their  Lady  is  remote.  St.  George 
without  Una  —  Holiness  without  Truth  —  is  valor- 
ous but  mistaken,  plunges  into  ever  graver  error, 
and  is  finally  taken  captive  by  the  pride  of  sense. 
The  soul  false  to  Divine  Wisdom  —  Dante  untrue 
to  Beatrice  —  wanders  lost  in  life's  forest,  and 
can  escape  its  foes  only  by  exploring  in  her  name 
all  depths  of  agony,  all  heights  of  struggle.  The 
Mind  of  Man,  alienated  from  the  Spirit  of  Love 
and  Nature,  —  Prometheus  far  from  Asia,  —  must 
hang,  pure  but  impotent,  upon  the  barren  cliff. 

Through  the  devotion  of  these  Ladies  of  Love, 
the  salvation  of  the  soul  is  wrought.  Beatrice 
descends  even  into  murky  Hell  that  she  may  sum- 
mon Virgil  to  the  aid  of  her  lost  lover,  and  when 
Dante  is  at  last  purified  to  behold  her,  draws  him 
upward  into  light  supernal.  Una  wanders  in  trust- 
ful search  for  her  untrue  knight,  till,  calling  to  her 
aid  the  might  of  Arthur,  she  succeeds  in  setting 
him  free  from  fleshly  prison ;  then  she  saves  him 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  121 

from  the  more  ghastly  horror  of  Despair,  and 
conducts  him  to  his  foe.  In  the  "Prometheus 
Unbound,"  Love  becomes  for  man  a  pilgrim,  and 
after  long  journey  ings  descends  to  the  dark  abode 
of  Revolutionary  Wisdom,  and  rouses  the  mighty, 
hidden  force  to  set  Prometheus  free.  Comparing 
these  stories,  we  may  feel  the  deeper  note  brought 
by  sin  in  the  poems  of  Dante  and  Spenser;  but 
there  is  a  peculiar  loveliness,  a  shining  pathos 
touched  with  the  glimmer  of  pure  tears  in  Shel- 
ley's vision,  the  vision  of  the  Psyche-soul,  aroused 
by  the  songs  of  Nature,  going  forth,  helpless  yet 
mighty,  to  seek  the  secret  of  Life  and  Fate  that 
thereby  she  may  set  free  her  beloved.  Not  Bea- 
trice descending  in  gracious  state  to  the  shades 
of  Hell,  not  Una  exploring  the  dungeons  of  Or- 
goglio,  touches  us  quite  in  the  same  way  as  this 
wistful  figure  of  Asia. 

Beatrice,  Una,  Asia,  all  three  are  to  their  poets 
the  source  whence  radiance  streams.  But  in  all 
three  the  glory  is  at  first  darkened.  Una  wears 
a  black  stole  over  her  heavenly  whiteness,  and 
seldom  does  she  escape  from  its  shadow  until  the 
final  triumph.  She  never,  as  it  were,  appears  in 
full  light.  When  her  stole  is  laid  aside  she  is 
deep  in  the  sombre  green  of  the  forest,  where  soft- 
ened light  falls  sadly  on  her  "angel's  face." 
Asia's  figure  is  dim  and  languid,  faint  as  mists 
before  sunrise,  when  first  we  find  her  waiting  in 
her  Indian  vale.  Only  as  she  is  roused  to  ac- 
tion does  the  light  of  life  visibly  begin  to  kindle 
through  her  delicate  and  dreamlike  form.  Bea- 


122  IDEALS    OF  REDEMPTION 

trice,  the  Glory  of  God,  must  not  be  shown  us 
with  her  beauty  dimmed.  Not  in  the  Inferno  do 
we  first  meet  her,  but  on  the  highest  peak  of  earth 
where  she  comes  attended  by  choirs  of  angels,  her 
brightness  softened  by  a  cloud  of  flowers  that  the 
mortal  eyes  of  her  lover  may  not  fail.  But  some- 
what the  same  effect  of  light  subdued  is  gained 
by  the  very  fact  that,  centre  of  the  poem  though 
she  be,  for  a  long  time  we  see  her  not.  When  we 
first  hear  of  her,  she  is  weeping,  and  we  seem,  as 
it  were,  dimly  to  discern  her  radiant  figure  through 
the  mists  and  tears  of  the  Inferno.  Dante  would 
not  let  us  see  the  tears  of  Beatrice ;  but  we  must 
learn  from  afar  of  her  weeping  that  we  may  be 
able  to  endure  her  smile,  we  must  long  pine  for  her 
in  the  shadows,  that  we  may  be  worthy  to  hail  her 
in  celestial  light. 

And,  as  they  are  shown  to  us  first  clouded  and 
darkened  by  sorrow,  so  the  movement  towards 
victory  is  marked  by  their  growth  in  radiance. 
With  Una,  the  change  is  instantaneous.  When 
the  Great  Foe  lies  dead  with  all  his  loathly  length, 
when  her  own  true  knight  is  welcomed  by  her 
aged,  happy  parents,  then  she  comes  forth  in  her 
glory. 

"  Then  forth  he  called  that  his  daughter  faire, 
The  fairest  Un'  his  onely  daughter  deare, 
His  onely  daughter,  and  his  onely  heyre  ; 
Who  forth  proceeding  with  sad  sober  cheare 
As  bright  as  doth  the  morning  starre  appeare 
Out  of  the  east,  with  flaming  lockes  bedight, 
To  tell  that  dawning  day  is  drawing  neare, 
And  to  the  world  does  bring  long-wished  light : 
So  faire  and  fresh  that  lady  shewd  her  selfe  in  sight : 


IDEALS    OF  REDEMPTION  123 

"  So  faire  and  fresh,  as  freshest  flowre  in  May ; 
For  she  had  layd  her  mournf  ull  stole  aside, 
And  widow-like  sad  wimple  throwne  away, 
Wherewith  her  heavenly  beautie  she  did  hide, 
Whiles  on  her  wearie  journey  she  did  ride ; 
And  on  her  now  a  garment  she  did  weare 
All  lilly  white,  withoutten  spot  or  pride, 
That  seemd  like  silke  and  silver  woven  weare, 

But  neither  silke  nor  silver  therein  did  appeare. 

"  The  blazing  brightnesse  of  her  beauties'  beame, 
And  glorious  light  of  her  sunshyny  face, 
To  tell,  were  as  to  strive  against  the  streame : 
My  ragged  rimes  are  all  too  rude  and  bace, 
Her  heavenly  lineaments  for  to  enchace. 
Ne  wonder ;  for  her  own  deare  loved  knight, 
All  were  she  dayly  with  himselfe  in  place, 
Did  wonder  much  at  her  celestiall  sight : 

Oft  had  he  scene  her  faire,  but  never  so  faire  dight." l 

In  Asia,  we  feel  the  gathering  light  from  the 
moment  when  she  sets  forth  upon  her  journey. 
Lovely  before,  her  loveliness  deepens  till  all  crea- 
tion blesses  her  path.  But  her  full  glory  bursts 
forth  only  after  her  visit  to  the  realm  of  Night 
and  Demogorgon.  In  a  rainbow-car,  — 

"  An  ivory  shell,  inlaid  with  crimson  fire 
Which  comes  and  goes  within  its  sculptured  rim 
Of  delicate  strange  tracery,"  — 

she  is  borne  upward  to  a  mystic  height.     There 
she  is  glorified  in  clear  rose-flame. 

"  The  sun  will  rise  not  until  noon  —  Apollo 
Is  held  in  heaven  by  wonder,  and  the  light 
Which  fills  this  vapor,  as  the  aerial  hue 
Of  fountain-gazing  roses  fills  the  water, 
Flows  from  thy  mighty  sister." 

1  The  Faerie  Queene,  I.,  12,  st.  21-23. 

OFTHE 

[UNIVERSITY 


124  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Panthea,  her  own  "chosen  one,"  cannot  endure 
to  behold  her :  — 

"  How  thou  art  changed !     I  dare  not  look  on  thee  — 
I  feel,  but  see  thee  not.     I  scarce  endure 
The  radiance  of  thy  beauty." 

The  climax  is  reached  when  a  Voice  in  the  Air 
hails  her  in  words  of  flame:  — 

"  Life  of  Life !     Thy  lips  enkindle 

With  their  love  the  breath  between  them ; 

And  thy  smiles  before  they  dwindle 

Make  the  cold  air  fire  ;  then  screen  them 

In  those  looks,  where  whoso  gazes 

Faints,  entangled  in  their  mazes. 

"  Child  of  Light !  thy  limbs  are  burning 

Through  the  veil  that  seems  to  hide  them 

As  the  radiant  lines  of  morning 

Through  the  clouds  ere  they  divide  them  ; 

And  this  atmosphere  divinest 

Shrouds  thee  wheresoe'er  thou  shinest. 

"  Fair  are  others  ;  none  beholds  thee, 

But  thy  voice  sounds  low  and  tender 
Like  the  fairest,  for  it  folds  thee 

From  the  sight,  that  liquid  splendor, 
And  all  feel,  yet  see  thee  never, 
As  I  feel  now,  lost  forever. 

"  Lamp  of  earth  !  where'er  thou  movest 
Its  dim  shapes  are  clad  with  brightness, 

And  the  souls  of  whom  thou  lovest 
Walk  upon  the  winds  with  lightness. 

Till  they  fail,  as  I  am  failing, 

Dizzy,  lost,  yet  unbewailing  !  "  l 

This  is  wonderful;  yet  the   highest   praise  we 
can  give  it  is  to  set  it  beside  the  vision  of  the 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  II.  sc.  v. 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  125 

Heavenly  Beatrice,  as  she  first  deigns  to  turn  her 
holy  eyes  upon  her  lover :  — 

"  O  isplendor  di  viva  luce  eterna, 

Chi  pallido  si  fece  sotto  1'  ombra 
Si  di  Parnaso,  o  bevve  in  sua  cisterna, 

Che  non  paresse  aver  la  raente  ingombra 
Tentando  a  render  te,  qual  tu  paresti, 

La  dove  armonizzando  il  ciel  d'  adombra, 
Quando  nell'  aere  aperto  te  solvesti  ?  "  1 

From  this  point  on,  there  is  nothing  in  art  or 
poetry  to  compare  with  the  deepening  glory  of  her 
eyes  and  smile.  The  light  of  them  "transhuman- 
izes  "  her  lover  and  raises  him  from  the  human  to 
the  divine.  His  memory  cannot  follow  her. 

"  Ma  Beatrice  si  bella  e  ridente 

Mi  si  mostr&,  che  tra  1'  altre  vedute 
Si  vuol  lasciar,  che  non  seguir  la  mente."  2 

The  time  comes  when  she  dares  not  smile  upon 
him,  lest  he  be  consumed  by  the  rays. 

'*  Gia  eran  gli  occhi  miei  rifissi  al  volto 

Delia  mia  Donna,  e  1'  animo  con  essi ; 
E  da  ogni  altro  intento  s'  era  tolto : 
Ed  ella  non  ridea ;  ma  *  S'  io  ridessi,' 

1  O  splendor  of  the  living  light  eternal ! 

Who  underneath  the  shadow  of  Parnassus 
Has  grown  so  pale,  or  drunk  so  at  its  cistern, 
He  would  not  seem  to  have  his  mind  encumbered 
Striving  to  paint  thee  as  thou  didst  appear, 
Where  the  harmonious  heaven  o'ershadowed  thee, 
When  in  the  open  air  thou  didst  unveil  ? 

Purgatorio,  xxxi.  139. 
2  But  Beatrice  so  beautiful  and  smiling 

Appeared  to  me,  that  with  the  other  sights 
That  followed  not  my  memory  I  must  leave  her. 

ParadisOj  xiv.  79. 


126  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Mi  comincio,  'tu  ti  faresti  quale 

Tu  Semele,  quando  di  cener  fessi. 
Che  la  bellezza  mia,  che  per  le  scale 

Dell'  eterno  palazzo  piu  s'  accende, 
(Com'  hai  veduto)  quanto  piu  si  sale 

Se  non  si  temperasse,  tanto  splende, 
Che  '1  tuo  mortal  potere  al  suo  fulgore 

Sarebbe  fronda  che  tuono  scoscende.'  "  l 

In  this  necessity  that  the  eyes  of  Beatrice  be 
veiled,  we  see  how  close  Shelley  comes  to  the 
thought  of  Dante.  The  Love  at  the  heart  of  the 
world  eludes  sight,  and  is  consciousness  rather 
than  vision. 

It  is  significant  to  note  the  relation  of  the  pro- 
tagonists to  these  ideal  women.  From  the  purely 
human  point  of  view,  that  between  St.  George  and 
Una  is  perhaps  the  sweetest.  True  woman  rather 
than  abstract  virtue  does  Una  upbraid  her  recreant 
knight. 

"  Ah,  my  long  lacked  lord, 
Where  have  ye  been  thus  long  out  of  my  sight  ? 

Much  feared  I  to  have  been  quite  abhorred, 
Or  ought  have  done,  that  ye  displeasen  might." 

1  Already  on  my  Lady's  face  mine  eyes 

Again  were  fastened,  and  with  these  my  mind, 
And  from  all  other  purpose  was  withdrawn ; 

And  she  smiled  not ;  but  "  If  I  were  to  smile,'^ 
She  unto  me  began,  "  thou  wouldst  become 
Like  Semele,  when  she  was  turned  to  ashes. 

Because  my  beauty,  that  along  the  stairs 
Of  the  eternal  palace  more  enkindles, 
As  thou  hast  seen,  the  farther  we  ascend, 

If  it  were  tempered  not,  is  so  resplendent 
That  all  thy  mortal  power  in  its  effulgence 
Would  seem  a  leaflet  that  the  thunder  crushes." 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  127 

She  is  helpless  in  his  absence,  but  when  the  two 
are  together  she  heartens  him  in  conflict  and  con- 
soles him  in  sorrow.  "Add  faith  unto  your  force, 
and  be  not  faint,"  she  cries  to  him.  It  is  her 
stinging  words  which  enable  him  to  face  like  a 
man  the  temptations  of  despair :  — 

"  Come,  come  away,  frail,  feeble,  fleshly  wight, 

Ne  let  vaine  words  bewitch  thy  manly  heart, 
Ne  divilish  thoughts  dismay  thy  constant  spright  — 
In  heavenly  mercies  hast  thou  not  a  part  ?  "  * 

It  is  she  who,  after  his  bitter  failure  and  sin, 
leads  him  to  the  House  of  Holiness,  and  listens, 
grieved  yet  content,  to  his  cries  under  the  lash  of 
repentance.  She  leans  on  him,  but  she  inspires 
him.  The  English  poet  of  the  renaissance  has 
given  us  an  exquisite  picture  of  the  Englishman 
and  Englishwoman  at  their  best,  in  perfect  union. 

At  certain  points,  the  conception  of  Spenser 
touches  that  of  Dante,  and  Una  is  sister  to  Bea- 
trice. At  others,  it  differs.  Through  the  en- 
chanted forests  of  Spenser  breathes  a  homely 
hedgerow  sweetness,  and  Una  with  all  her  ethereal 
purity  is  an  English  maiden  who  could  quietly 
grace  a  home.  The  modern  woman,  the  domestic 
woman,  is  felt  in  her.  But  Beatrice  is  Lady  of 
the  Courts  of  Heaven.  Dante's  feeling  for  her 
brings  us  full  upon  that  union  of  mysticism  and 
chivalry  which  marked  the  Middle  Age.  Of  his 
adoring  love,  what  need  to  speak?  The  race-life 
knows  no  higher  heritage.  Her  smile  is  "tal,  che 
nel  fuoco  faria  1'  uom  felice."  But  to  Beatrice, 

1  The  Faerie  Queene,  I.,  9,  st.  53. 


128  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Dante  is  child  and  disciple  rather  than  lover. 
Bitter  is  the  rebuke  with  which  she  first  greets 
him.  Her  lofty  sternness  changes  to  lofty  gra- 
ciousness  when  repentance  is  fulfilled;  yet  to  the 
last  she  is  immeasurably  above  him,  and  the  un- 
speakable remoteness  whence,  from  her  station  in 
the  Celestial  Rose,  she  sends  him  the  final  ardor 
of  her  smile,  is  the  perfect  symbol  of  the  relation 
between  them. 

Turning  to  Shelley,  we  find  the  same  world-old 
and  instinctive  symbol,  the  love  between  man  and 
woman,  to  express  life's  essential  meaning.  Yet 
as  we  speak  we  hesitate.  The  simple  concrete 
terms  ill  suit  Prometheus  and  Asia,  those  vast 
impersonations,  real  indeed,  but  real  as  shadows 
cast  from  earth  upon  the  sunset  sky.  The  love 
described  by  Shelley  is  fervid  but  characterless, 
absolute  but  remote  from  human  comprehension. 
It  baffles  us  as  we  seek  to  understand.  Here  is 
no  suggestion,  as  in  Spenser,  of  homely  human 
bliss,  no  emphasis  as  in  Dante  on  spiritual  devel- 
opment through  devout  affection.  The  union  is 
natural,  not  ethical;  an  impulse,  not  a  consecra- 
tion. Shelley's  lovers  are  indeed  interdependent. 
Prometheus  without  Asia  pines  in  weakness :  — 

"  And  them  art  far 

Asia !  who  when  my  being  overflowed 
Wert  like  a  golden  chalice  to  bright  wine 
Which  else  had  sunk  into  the  thirsty  earth." 

Asia  without  Prometheus  is  dazed  and  languid ; 
only  by  his  image  in  the  eyes  of  faith  is  she 
wakened  from  dream  to  deed.  Yet  necessary  to 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  129 

each  other  though  these  lovers  be,  in  their  love  is 
nothing  that  sustains  or  guides.  Through  Asia, 
the  salvation  of  the  Titan  is  mystically  and  indi- 
rectly achieved;  but  she  holds  to  him  no  direct 
relation,  such  as  Una  to  St.  George,  Beatrice  to 
Dante.  Una  and  Beatrice  express  Womanhood; 
Asia  is  the  simple  expression  of  Sex. 

The  love  between  Asia  and  Prometheus  is  most 
strong  in  absence.  No  one  has  rendered  as  Shel- 
ley the  passion  of  desire,  the  pure  and  tremulous 
yearning  after  an  unattained  ideal,  a  love  felt  only 
in  dreams, — 

"  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star, 

Of  the  night  for  the  morrow, 
The  longing  for  something  afar 
From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow." 

Here  is  the  true  home  of  his  restless  spirit.  Dante 
cries  out  upon  Beatrice,  St.  George,  lacking  Una, 
is  lonely  and  distraught.  But  nowhere  else  have 
we  as  in  this  modern  poem  the  quivering  pain  of 
Love  unsatisfied,  the  beating  of  frail  wings  against 
the  veiled  Secret  of  the  universe.  A  wistful  long- 
ing for  a  glory  lost  is  in  the  words  of  Prometheus, 
and  through  the  wondrous  melody  of  Asia's  songs 
breathes  a  sense  of  incompleteness  and  desire. 
The  Unfulfilled  kindles  all  the  imaginative  fire  of 
the  drama.  When  the  lovers  meet,  the  poetry 
falls.  The  sense  of  reality  is  gone.  Shelley  him- 
self touches  lightly  upon  their  union,  as  knowing 
that  it  held  for  him  no  meaning. 

"  Asia,  thou  light  of  life,"  — 

cries  the  freed  Titan, — 


130  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

"  Shadow  of  beauty  unbeheld  .  .  . 
Henceforth  we  will  not  part." 

This  is  really  all.  No  further  personal  note  is 
struck.  Nothing  is  here  to  compare  with  the 
grave  and  tender  joy  of  the  Ked-Cross  Knight  and 
Una,  when  after  long  grief  and  pain  they  meet  at 
last.  Far  less  is  there  anything  to  put  beside  that 
greater  scene  where  Beatrice,  grave  and  glorious, 
comes  at  last  to  her  contrite  lover. 

Shelley  can  give  us  love  in  absence,  the  love 
that  is  yearning;  but  the  love  that  is  possession 
he  cannot  give.  He  can  give  us  the  mystic  rap- 
ture of  union  with  an  ideal ;  human  tenderness  lies 
without  his  scope;  and  love  is  sentiment  to  him, 
not  discipline.  Prometheus,  with  all  his  mystic 
thirst  to  absorb  the  very  being  of  Asia,  has  no  rev- 
erence for  her  personality.  Asia  with  all  her  devo- 
tion knows  nothing  of  the  human  need.  The  ideal 
is  the  absorption,  almost  the  extinction,  of  each  in 
each,  not  the  perfection  of  each  through  each.  The 
love  depicted  by  Shelley  can  enrapture  but  it  can- 
not uplift,  it  can  liberate  but  it  cannot  save. 

In  his  own  way,  Shelley  is  as  religious  as  Dante. 
His  love  like  Dante's  is  purified  to  worship. 
Asia  is  the  Glory  of  the  World.  In  the  heat  and 
radiance  of  her  presence  the  soul  faints  with  joy. 
Whence  the  world-wide  difference  between  her 
and  Beatrice? 

World-wide  indeed!  For  it  is  the  difference 
between  two  religions,  the  religion  of  the  middle 
ages  and  that  of  numbers  in  the  modern  world. 

Shelley,  like  Dante,  is  a  mystic.     The  Secret 


IDEALS  OF  REDEMPTION  131 

hidden  behind  the  veil  is  to  both  poets  the  su- 
preme fact.  Asia,  as  Beatrice,  is  type  and  sym- 
bol, "Shadow  of  beauty  unbeheld;"  but  from  a 
study  of  these  two  symbols,  we  may  read  all  the 
difference  between  the  mysticism  of  the  middle 
ages  and  the  revolution,  of  Christianity  and  modern 
thought. 

For  into  Beatrice  passes  the  thought  of  the 
Wisdom  of  God;  into  Asia,  the  thought  of  the 
Life  of  Nature. 

Beatrice,  we  say,  is  Womanhood,  while  Asia  is 
Sex,  and  this  is  true.  The  one  is  infused  with  a 
sacred  and  perfected  Personality,  the  other  is  pure 
essence.  But  Beatrice  is  not  personality  alone, 
and  she  passes  beyond  womanhood.  Her  very 
being  is  sacramental.  She  is  to  Dante  the  sym- 
bol of  divine  glory  and  grace.  The  Asia-Symbol 
is  no  less  full  of  meaning.  Conceived  at  the  dawn 
of  modernism,  it  gathers  into  itself,  not  the  super- 
sensuous  and  the  divine,  but  the  elemental  and 
the  natural.  Child  of  the  foam,  like  Aphrodite, 
Asia  marks  the  reversion  to  Paganism  as  clearly  as 
the  general  theme  of  Shelley.  It  is  the  light  of 
sky  and  water,  the  warmth  of  earth,  the  glory  of 
blossom,  which  have  passed  into  her  form.  She 
is  the  Spirit  of  Nature,  to  Shelley  the  only  Spirit 
of  Love.  Beatrice  breathes  celestial  air,  and  the 
unsubstantial  light  of  the  Primum  Mobile  is  her 
abiding  place.  This  world  save  in  briefest  visita- 
tion knows  her  not.  Asia  is  gathered  from  the 
mists  of  earth.  The  vales  of  earth  are  her  dwell- 
ing, its  peaks  and  forests  the  scene  of  her  pilgrim- 


132  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

age,  and  the  air  she  breathes  touches  our  mortal 
cheeks.  The  "beauty  unbeheld,"  whereof  Asia  is 
the  shadow,  is  the  Anima  Mundi,  the  soul  of  the 
natural  world  ;  the  vision  whereon  gaze  the  eyes 
of  Beatrice  is  the  Face  of  God. 

Shelley  was  the  poet  of  the  revolution,  and  the 
revolution,  on  its  intellectual  side,  was  the  signal 
of  a  new  faith.  Destroying  ecclesiasticism,  seem- 
ing to  destroy  Christianity,  it  threw  men  back 
on  nature;  and  they  found  religion  there.  The 
holy  mystery  of  the  natural  world  was  revealed  to 
them;  its  glory,  inspiring  them  all,  finds  supreme 
imaginative  expression  in  the  figure  of  Asia.  The 
religion  of  the  fourteenth  century  and  of  the  nine- 
teenth, of  Christianity  and  of  nature,  are  made 
clear  to  us  in  all  their  differing  vitality  if  we  place 
beside  this  lovely  figure  the  sacred  form  of  Beatrice. 

The  many  differences  in  the  handling  of  the  two 
conceptions  all  spring  from  this  great  difference 
in  their  intent.  Asia  cannot  be  personal,  since 
she  stands  for  the  impersonal  force  of  nature. 
She  cannot  train  her  lover,  for  nature  can  inspire, 
but  she  cannot  guide.  The  love  between  her  and 
Prometheus  is  inevitably  strongest  in  absence; 
forever  inscrutable,  forever  apart,  nature  perpet- 
ually invites  approach,  but  never  yields  her  secret. 
It  is  not  for  man  to  pluck  out  the  heart  of  her 
mystery.  Asia  is  to  Shelley  the  final,  absolute 
good.  Beyond  her,  there  is  nothing  which  man 
may  ever  know.  Una  and  Beatrice,  alike  inspired 
by  the  divine  love,  come  as  messengers  from  some- 
what above  themselves.  Therefore  they  have  au- 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  133 

thority  over  the  soul  of  man;  therefore,  symbols 
though  they  be,  they  gain  reality.  Asia  cannot 
worship ;  because  Beatrice  worships  she  can  com- 
mand. From  the  eyes  of  Beatrice,  the  Image  of 
Christ  is  reflected;  the  comfort  she  brings  to  her 
lover  in  sorrow  is  the  thought  of  her  nearness  to 
God. 

"  Muta  pensier  ;  pensa  ch'  io  sono 
Presso  a  Colui,  ch'  ogni  torto  disgrava." 

When  last  he  sees  her,  she  flashes  her  glory  full 
upon  him;  then  turns  to  the  Eternal  Fountain; 
and  we  know  that  though  Dante  descend  to  earthly 
shadows,  he  and  his  Lady  are  forever  one  in  ado- 
ration. The  deep  mazes  of  the  eyes  of  Nature 
hold  for  Shelley  no  reflected  image;  she  brings  no 
message  of  the  Divine. 

In  the  dramatic  entourage  of  the  poems,  we  find 
difference  of  artistry  and  spirit  akin  to  that  in  the 
conception  of  the  women.  The  "Divine  The Ideala of 
Comedy  "  is  mediaeval  and  Christian;  the  TriumPh- 
"Prometheus  Unbound"  is  born  of  the  revolu- 
tion. Candidly  agnostic,  the  modern  poem  seeks, 
though  with  imperfect  success,  to  be  atheistic.  In 
its  highest  reach  it  attains  to  a  faith  which  vivifies 
the  nature  inferior  to  man,  but  brings  into  the 
human  sphere  no  powers  from  above. 

In  Dante  and  Spenser,  help  from  above  descends 
through  countless  ministries.  Angelic  visitations 
console  and  invigorate  men  in  their  wanderings, 
and  visions  of  the  Heavenly  City  inspire  them  on 
their  way.  Even  in  the  Inferno,  before  the  City 


134  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

of  Dis,  where  the  Gorgon-head  of  denial  of  God 
is  displayed  on  the  evil  walls,  the  august  mes- 
senger of  God  sweeps  downward  with  swift  help. 
At  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  Purgatory,  the  white 
wings  of  the  Bird  of  God  waft  over  the  summer  sea 
the  souls  of  those  who  fell  asleep  in  Christ;  and 
on  the  steep  terraces  gentle  figures  speed  the  suf- 
fering souls  upon  their  way  with  singing,  or  come 
to  succor  them  in  time  of  need.  It  is  impossible 
to  express  the  tender  and  subtle  ways  in  which, 
through  unnumbered  ministries  of  intercession, 
Divine  Love  falls  upon  the  soul  of  Dante,  as  warm 
light  from  the  heaven  of  heavens  sinks  through 
the  atmosphere  of  earth. 

In  Shelley,  all  this  is  changed.  Angels  have 
given  place  to  the  personified  forces  of  nature,  or 
the  instincts  of  the  soul  of  man,  varied  only  by 
a  few  classical  figures.  Jove,  Panthea,  Furies, 
Echoes,  Spirits,  Fauns,  Hours,  Elemental  Genii, 
such  are  the  chorus  of  the  drama.  Fair  forms 
they  are,  whose  melody  is  as  the  voice  of  winds 
and  birds  and  waters,  heard  mingled  from  -afar. 
Yet  even  as  we  gaze  they  elude  us,  and  their  min- 
istry to  man  is  wavering  and  sad.  In  his  utmost 
need  they  desert  him,  and  his  strength  is  to  be 
found  in  self-reliance  alone.  A  kindled  conscious- 
ness of  the  abounding  but  elusive  life  in  nature 
has  replaced  the  old  faith  in  supernatural  help. 

As  we  approach  the  end,  this  change  in  attitude 
becomes  most  strikingly  marked,  and  much  that 
we  have  said  finds  summary* 

Spenser  shows  us  but  a  pause.    The  marriage  of 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  135 

St.  George  and  Una  is  on  earth  and  not  in  heaven. 
The  Church  is  still  militant  and  not  triumphant, 
and  the  knight  goes  forth  to  renewed  battle  in  the 
service  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  What  would  have 
been  Spenser's  picture  of  the  final  triumph  of 
Gloriana  against  the  Paynim  hosts,  we  can  but 
surmise. 

Shelley's  poem  also  ends  on  earth.  Yet  the 
critics  rightly  place  beside  the  Paradiso  of  Dante 
the  third  and  fourth  acts  of  "Prometheus  Un- 
bound." For  Shelley  knows  no  heaven  but  a 
regenerate  earth;  looking  forward  to  no  celestial 
future,  he  has  given  us  here  his  purest  vision  of 
the  life  of  man. 

Externally  and  aesthetically,  the  elements  of 
Shelley's  vision  and  of  Dante's  vision  are  -one. 
Both  poets  have  overheard  the  singing  spheres, 
and  seen  them  whirl  in  mystic  rapture.  Flames 
of  pure  light  that  sing  and  dance,  that  flush  and 
pale,  that  move  in  exquisite  curves  from  glory  to 
glory,  such  are  the  symbols  in  Dante  which  adum- 
brate the  rapture  of  supreme  bliss.  In  Shelley, 
they  are  the  same.  His  imagination  too  is  pos- 
sessed by  a  whirling,  circular  motion;  his  ideal 
too  is  interwoven  of  color  and  motion  and  song, 
only  the  color  is  more  broken  into  rainbow -tints, 
and  the  words  of  the  singing  are  more  clearly 
overheard.  It  is  almost  startling  to  find  in  these 
radically  different  conceptions  so  absolute  an  iden- 
tity of  symbol. 

For  radically  different  the  conceptions  are. 
Still  abstractions  and  natural  forces  alone  shine 


136  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

through  the  symbols  of  Shelley.  The  Hours,  the 
Spirits  of  the  Human  Mind,  the  Earth,  the  Moon, 
Demogorgon,  the  spirits  of  animal  creation,  the 
ghosts  of  the  dead,  are  the  speakers  in  the  mystic 
chorus.  To  Dante,  human  souls  alone,  in  all  their 
spheres  of  bliss,  are  the  exponents  of  redemption 
and  of  joy. 

Very  modern  is  this  extension  of  conscious  rap- 
ture beyond  the  soul  of  man,  to  all  the  visible 
world.  We  hail  it  as  a  grand  and  lovely  gift 
to  the  imagination.  Yet,  taking  all  for  all,  the 
ideal  of  Shelley  beside  that  of  Dante  is  weak  and 
thin.  Even  William  Rossetti  confesses  of  certain 
passages  in  the  Paradiso  :  "They  are  doubtless 
quite  as  intense  and  quite  as  beautiful,  and  are 
even  more  moving,  as  being  blended  with  a  defi- 
nite creed,  and  the  heights  and  depths  of  emotion, 
personal  and  historical,  that  throb  along  with  that. 
Shelley's  theme  has  no  such  inner  pulse  of  associa- 
tion; it  becomes  therefore  all  the  more  arduous 
and  crucial  an  attempt."  Nor  can  we  feel  the 
attempt  successful.  The  life  of  Prometheus  and 
Asia,  absorbed  in  sentiment  and  the  progress  of 
the  arts,  the  picture  of  a  monotonously  equal  soci- 
ety, swayed  by  pure  natural  impulse,  the  vision 
of  the  progressive  conquest  of  nature  by  man,  all 
these  pall  on  us.  Not  all  the  exquisite  imagery  of 
Act  IV.  can  compensate  for  a  hidden  lack. 

If  Shelley  fails,  as  fail  he  does,  it  is  in  company 
with  all  other  inventors  of  Utopias.  Imaginings 
of  the  perfect  state,  from  Plato  to  Bellamy  and 
Morris,  bore  us  when  they  do  not  outrage.  Their 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  137 

monotony  of  bliss  is  empty,  and  they  one  and  all 
ignore  facts.  Out  of  Holy  Writ,  no  picture  of 
ideal  society  can  hold  us.  None,  with  one  excep- 
tion. Where  Shelley  fails,  Dante  has  succeeded. 
The  Paradiso  is  a  glorious  triumph.  Our  interest 
in  the  sacred  poem  grows  deeper  and  deeper  to  the 
end ;  and  the  reader  is  obtuse  who  is  free  from  the 
impulse  to  read  the  last  three  cantos  on  his  knees. 
We  rise  from  their  perusal,  not  with  a  wistful  sigh, 
"Is  that  all?"  but  with  an  act  of  praise.  A  fu- 
ture satisfying,  nay  transcending  every  desire,  glori- 
fying all  experience,  a  future  for  which  it  was  worth 
while  to  descend  into  Hell,  this  he  has  given  us. 

What  is  the  secret  of  his  success,  where  the  poet 
of  the  revolution  fails? 

The  first  reason  is  aesthetic  —  his  frank  and 
exclusive  use  of  symbol.  Even  Shelley  fails  by 
occasional  intrusion  of  literal  fact.  Prometheus 
and  Asia  in  their  cave  are  too  vague  for  person- 
alities, yet  they  are  also  too  human  for  symbols. 
The  imagination,  unsatisfied  in  either  way,  turns 
aside  unfed.  But  from  the  moment  when  Dante  is 
lifted  to  the  first  sphere  by  the  eyes  of  Beatrice, 
the  natural  is  utterly  discarded,  and  figure  melts 
into  figure  with  swift  and  shining  peace.  The 
blessed  souls,  first  discerned  as  reflections  in  shal- 
low, sunlit  water,  become  mere  flame,  light,  and 
song.  In  mystic  gyrations  they  circle  round  him, 
now  shaping  themselves  into  a  Cross,  Christ's  sol- 
diery, now  into  an  Eagle,  his  dominion.  Later, 
and  lo!  they  are  a  river  of  light  with  flowery 
banks  whence  myriads  of  angelic  sparks  fly  up- 


138  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

ward.  Still  an  instant,  and  once  more  they  are 
changed;  they  form  a  rose  of  countless  leaves, 
above  whose  divine  fragrance  the  angelic  hosts, 
like  golden  bees,  are  murmuring.  All  this  marvel 
of  imagery  unfolds,  silent  and  suave  as  the  gather- 
ing dawn  in  a  windless,  cloudless  night.  So  awe- 
struck with  eternal  peace  is  the  soul  that  reveals  it 
that  his  deep  quiet  becomes  our  own,  and  we  pause, 
content  with  adoration. 

But  this  perfect  use  of  symbol  was  possible 
only  to  one  who  possessed  Dante's  peculiar  faith, 
to  whom  Soul  was  the  supreme  reality.  The  true 
secret  of  his  strange  power  to  satisfy  is  not  in  his 
art  but  in  his  spirit.  With  an  audacity  impossible 
to  the  poet  of  the  revolution,  he  promises  us  that 
wherein  alone  the  soul  can  ever  rest :  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Absolute,  the  Beatific  Vision  of  the 
Most  High.  This,  this  is  the  end  of  life ;  this, 
Dante  tells  us,  shall  be  attained  by  penitent  and 
purified  souls.  No  Vision  of  the  Absolute  could 
Shelley  offer ;  none  has  been  offered  ever  by  the 
natural  religion  of  the  --revolution,  or  any  of  the 
vague  religions  of  tendency  which  the  century  has 
since  known.  Man  is  pressed  down  forever  into 
the  relative.  The  woven  veil  of  Death  is  never 
lifted,  and  the  secret  of  existence  evades  humanity 
freed  as  it  evaded  humanity  bound.  Art,  Philoso- 
phy, History,  Love,  all  minister  to  Shelley's  re- 
deemed race.  One  thing  he  could  not  promise 
them :  the  Face  of  God. 

So  we  return  to  our  starting-point.     The  cen- 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  139 

tral  word  of  Dante  is  Obedience ;  the  central  word 
of  Shelley  is  Freedom.     The  poet  of  the  Freedom 
revolution  longs  for  a  state  of  absolute  aSTFreL 
equality,    unrestrained   liberty,    a    state  urai. 
where,  as  we  instinctively  feel,  growth  cannot  be. 
Dante,    disciple   of   Virgil,   servant   of   Beatrice, 
worshiper   of    God,    mounts   forever   because   his 
eyes  are  forever  fixed  on  that  which  soars  above. 
His  peace,  the  peace  of  all  the  denizens  of  Heaven, 
is  found  in  service  and  humility.     The  law  of  the 
Divine  Society  is  exquisitely  told  to  him  by  the 
least  and  feeblest  of  the  souls  of  the  blessed :  — 

"  Frate,  la  nostra  volonta  quieta 

Virtu  di  carita,  che  fa  volerne 
Sol  quel  ch'  avemo,  e  d'  altro  non  ci  asseta — 

Se  disiassimo  esser  piu  superne, 
Foran  discord!  gli  nostri  disiri 

Dal  voler  di  Colui  che  qui  ne  cerne  ; 
Che  vedrai  non  capere  in  questi  giri, 

S'  essere  in  caritate  e  qui  necesse, 
E  se  la  sua  natura  ben  rimiri  ; 

Anzi  e  formale  ad  esto  beato  esse 
Tenersi  dentro  alia  divina  voglia, 

Perch'  una  f  ansi  nostre  voglie  stesse  — 
Si  che,  come  noi  siam  di  soglia  in  soglia 

Per  questo  regno,  a  tutto  lo  regno  piace, 
Com'  allo  Re,  che  in  suo  voler  ne  invoglia  — 

In  la  sua  volontade  e  nostra  pace  ; 
Ella  e  quel  mare,  al  qual  tutto  si  muove, 

Ci6  ch'  ella  cria,  o  che  natura  face  — 
Chiaro  mi  fu  allor  com'  ogni  dove 

In  cielo  e  Paradise,  e  si  la  grazia 
Del  sommo  ben  d'  un  modo  non  vi  piove." l 

1  Brother,  our  will  is  quieted  by  virtue 
Of  charity,  that  makes  us  wish  alone 
For  what  we  have,  nor  gives  us  thirst  for  more. 


140  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Beside  this  image  of  the  Heavenly  Society,  place 
the  revolutionary  ideal :  — 

..."  Soon  I  looked, 

And  behold,  thrones  were  kingless,  and  men  walked 
One  with  the  other  even  as  spirits  do. 

None  frowned,  none  trembled,  none  with  eager  fear 

Gazed  on  another's  eye  of  cold  command 

Until  the  subject  of  a  tyrant's  will 

Became,  worse  fate,  the  abject  of  his  own, 

Which  spurred  him,  like  an  outspent  horse,  to  death. 

The  loathsome  mask  has  fallen,  the  man  remains,  — 
Sceptreless,  free,  uncircumscribed,  but  man  ; 
Equal,  unclassed,  tribeless,  and  nationless, 
Exempt  from  awe,  worship,  degree,  the  king 
Over  himself  ;  just,  gentle,  wise  ;  but  man 
Passionless  ?  no  :  —  yet  free  from  guilt  or  pain, 
Which  were,  for  his  will  made  or  suffered  them  — 
Nor  yet  exempt,  though  ruling  them  like  slaves, 
From  chance,  and  change,  and  mutability,  — 
The  clogs  of  that  which  else  might  oversoar 

If  to  be  more  exalted  we  aspired, 
Discordant  would  our  aspirations  be 
Unto  the  will  of  Him  who  here  secludes  us ; 

Which  thou  shalt  see  finds  no  place  in  these  circles, 
If  being  in  charity  is  needful  here, 
And  if  thou  lookest  well  into  its  nature ; 

Nay,  't  is  essential  to  this  blest  existence 
To  keep  itself  within  the  will  divine, 
Whereby  our  very  wishes  are  made  one ; 

So  that,  as  we  are  station  above  station 

Throughout  this  realm,  to  all  the  realm  't  is  pleasing, 
As  to  the  King,  who  makes  his  will  our  will. 

And  his  will  is  our  peace  ;  this  is  the  sea 
To  which  is  moving  onward  whatsoever 
It  doth  create,  and  all  that  nature  makes. 

Paradiso,  iii.  70. 


or  if  i 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  141 

The  loftiest  star  of  unascended  heaven, 
Pinnacled  dim  in  the  intense  inane."  1 

Which  is  higher,  —  the  differing  bliss,  the  rev- 
erent obedience,  of  Dante,  —  or  the  ungoverned 
equality  of  the  modern  poet? 

Dante's  idea  of  Obedience  is  no  blind  allegiance 
to  arbitrary  rule.  It  holds  within  itself  the 
promise  and  the  principle  of  freedom.  It  is  "cer- 
cando  liberta"  that  he  makes  his  pilgrimage. 
This  liberty,  indeed,  is  no  innate  right:  it  is  a 
privilege  acquired  by  hard  labor.  It  comes  late, 
not  soon.  Dante,  subject  to  the  commands  of 
Virgil,  has  seen  the  doleful  sights  of  the  abyss  ;  sub- 
missive to  angelic  hest  he  has  climbed  upward. 
At  last  the  discipline  is  over;  and  on  the  top  of 
the  Mount  of  Purgatory,  Virgil  addresses  him  in 
wonderful  words  :  — 

"  II  temporal  fuoco  e  F  eterno 
Veduto  hai,  figlio  ;  e  se'  venuto  in  parte 
Ov'  io  per  me  piu  oltre  ne  discerno. 
Tralto  t'  ho  qui  con  ingegno  e  con  arte  ; 
Lo  tuo  piacere  omai  prendi  per  ducett 
Fuor  se'  dell'  erte  vie,  fuor  se'  dell  'arte. 

Non  aspettar  mio  dir  piu,  ne  mio  cenno  : 
Libero,  dritto,  sano  e  lo  tuo  arbitrio, 
E  f  allo  fora  non  fare  a  suo  senno  ; 

Per  ch'  io  te  sopra  te  corono  e  mitrio."  2 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  III.  439. 

2  The  temporal  fire  and  the  eternal, 
Son,  thou  hast  seen,  and  to  a  place  art  come 
Where  of  myself  no  farther  I  discern. 

By  intellect  and  art  I  here  have  brought  thee  ; 

Take  thine  own  pleasure  for  thy  guide  henceforth  ; 
Beyond  the  steep  ways  and  the  narrow  art  thou. 


142  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

Dante  has  come  forth  into  the  glorious  liberty 
of  the  Sons  of  God.  Outward  control  he  needs 
no  longer.  He  is  in  Paradise ;  and 

"  Ivi  e  perf etta,  matura  ed  Integra 
Ciascun  disianza." 

To  him  is  said,  as  to  the  holy  soul  set  free  by 
death:  — 

**  You  cannot  now 
Cherish  a  wish  that  ought  not  to  be  wished." 

He  has  attained 

"  The  ultimate  angel's  law, 
There,  where  love,  light,  joy,  impulse,  are  one  thing.". . . 

"  Where  love  is  an  unerring  light, 
And  joy  its  own  security." 

His  service  henceforth  is  perfect  freedom. 

Freedom  won  through  long  discipline ;  freedom 
an  innate  right!  Here  again,  as  ever,  the  poems 
express  the  deepest  thought  of  two  great  periods. 
Shall  we  not  rather  say,  since  historic  periods  are 
but  symbols  of  perpetual  fact,  that  these  two 
poems  express  two  attitudes  of  the  spirit  of  man  ? 
Freedom  through  obedience!  Here  is  the  Chris- 
tian conception.  Freedom  an  innate  right!  Here 
is  the  revolutionary  thought.  Christ  places  Free- 
dom at  the  end;  the  revolution  places  it  at  the 
beginning. 

We  have  experienced  much  since  Shelley  wrote ; 

Expect  no  more  or  word  or  sign  from  me  ; 

Free  and  upright  and  sound  is  thy  free-will, 

And  error  were  it  not  to  do  its  bidding ; 
Thee  o'er  thyself  I  therefore  crown  and  mitre ! 

Purgatorio,xx.vii.  127. 


IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION  143 

we  have  passed  through  a  long  century  of  struggle. 
To  what  does  our  experience  impel  us  to  give 
trust? 

The  revolution  beheld  Freedom  from  afar;  not 
for  individuals  alone,  but  for  the  race.  A 
shining  summit  with  no  clouds  between,  the  men 
who  first  hailed  it  thought  instantly  to  set  their 
feet  upon  its  holy  snows.  The  morning  faded  and 
the  cosmic  day  has  swept  on.  But  still  we  press 
forward,  through  doubt  and  pain,  on,  towards 
democracy,  freedom,  and  the  wide,  pure  love  of 
brothers.  We  have  not  yet  attained;  but  we 
thank  the  men  who  beheld;  and  because  Shelley 
beheld,  we  hail  him  prophet.  But  the  freedom 
we  shall  reach  will  be  won  by  the  discipline  of 
years.  We  climb  our  Mount  of  Purgatory  through 
darkened  air  and  drifting  cloud;  and  it  may  be 
that  only  this  long  struggle  could  prepare  for  the 
spiritual  liberty  which  awaits  us  in  that  Paradise 
which,  though  on  earth,  is  visited  by  angels,  and 
blessed  by  the  Divine  Abiding. 

In  many  ways,  we  enter  a  wider  world  and  a 
more  living  air  as  we  pass  from  the  sphere  of 
Dante  to  that  of  Shelley.  There  is  exaltation  in 
the  new  kinship  felt  with  Nature  and  the  stimu- 
lus to  the  religious  passion  found  in  the  forms  of 
the  surrounding  world.  The  love  of  humanity, 
and  a  joyous  hopefulness  for  the  future  of  the  race, 
seem  healthful  complements  if  not  high  substi- 
tutes for  the  sad  passion  of  religious  individual- 
ism in  the  older  poem.  Gaining  in  breadth  and 
freedom,  the  Prometheus  gains  also,  at  least  in 


144  IDEALS   OF  REDEMPTION 

truthfulness  to  modern  life,  by  recognition  of  the 
sorrow  and  discipline  of  doubt. 

Yet  not  with  entire  complacency  can  we  lay  our 
poems  aside.  If  the  elder  poet  has  less  sweep  of 
vision,  his  spiritual  insight  is  more  keen.  The 
problem  of  evil  faces  Dante  and  Shelley  alike ;  and 
the  Catholic  answer  of  Dante,  inadequate  though 
it  may  be,  meets  fact  and  satisfies  need  better 
than  the  evasions  of  Shelley.  If  the  modern 
thought  of  salvation  is  broader,  to  attain  it  we  are 
left  with  less  help.  Shelley  offers  only  the  unlim- 
ited extension  of  limited  conditions,  and  our  souls 
weary  of  the  thought;  the  poet  of  the  Paradiso 
promises  the  Knowledge  of  the  Most  High. 


IV 

THE  NEW   RENAISSANCE 

1.  Modern  Reversions 

GREAT  art  is  the  reflection  of  its  present,  cry 
the  critics  on  the  one  side.     To  great  art  there 
is  no  past,  cry  the  critics  on  the  other.   The  Power 
Which   is  true?      Must  sincere  art  al-  ofthepast- 
ways  follow  with  docility  the  realist  dogma,  and 
reproduce  contemporary  fact?     Or  does  it  dwell 
within  that  eternal  present  where  forms  of  vanished 
antiquities   and  distant  regions  move  ruddy  with 
quick  life  beside  their  brethren  of  to-day  ? 

A  vexed  question,  to  be  solved  less  by  talk 
or  aesthetic  theories  than  by  the  appeal  to  fact. 
And  the  answer  is  surely  not  ambiguous.  Poets 
and  artists  have  always,  silently  for  the  most  part, 
shown  themselves  free  by  right  divine  of  the  wide 
kingdom  of  the  ages.  What  matter  to  Shake- 
speare whether  he  pluck  out  the  heart  of  the  mys- 
tery of  the  Eoman  Brutus,  the  English  King  Hal, 
or  the  dream  Prospero  ?  The  story  of  Cambustes 
bold  runs  as  merrily  through  Chaucer's  verse  as 
the  tale  of  the  pilgrims.  Long  before  the  classic 
revival,  Dante  pauses  in  Hell  by  the  flame  that 
holds  Ulysses,  and  a  free  wind  from  ancient,  joy- 
ous Greece  blows  through  the  foul,  infernal  air,  as 


146  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

the  hero,  in  words  more  buoyant  than  even  Tenny- 
son has  placed  upon  his  lips,  recounts  his  last 
adventure.  The  imagination  knows  neither  age 
nor  country.  Yet  whether  it  treat  the  sorrows  of 
a  modern  street-boy  or  of  Titans  dead,  the  art 
which  results  is  realistic,  since  realism  is  simply 
the  record  of  things  seen,  and  the  sight  of  the 
outer  eye  is  dim  and  vague  compared  to  the  pier- 
cing vision  of  the  eye  within. 

No  literary  period  has  ever  sought  inspiration 
from  past  ideals  more  eagerly  than  our  own. 
There  is  something  curious  in  these  frequent  re- 
versions to  dream  and  memory  on  the  part  of  a 
generation  which  is  perpetually  clamoring  for  the 
actual  modern  Fact.  The  actual  and  the  modern 
are  given  us  in  full  measure,  but  our  art  with  dis- 
dainful largess  gives  us  more  than  we  have  asked. 
Modern  poetry  floods  with  unflinching  illumina- 
tion the  tenement  and  the  gutter;  yet  through  the 
harsh  light  of  to-day  it  conjures  up  now  and  again 
the  moonbeams  of  the  past,  in  whose  radiance  an 
Endymion  or  a  Christabel  may  wander.  From  the 
mental  vacillations  of  our  spiritual  aristocracy,  it 
transports  us  in  a  twinkling  to  the  calm  passions 
and  majestic  pains  of  an  elder  world.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  past !  It  is  only  less  potent  than  the 
influence  of  science  and  of  democracy  over  our 
modern  English  poetry. 

Like  all  our  literary  movements,  this  poetic 
revival  of  the  past  is  first  evident  in  the  poets  of 
the  revolution.  Their  poetry  tingles  with  con- 
temporary passion ;  English  thought  and  English 


MODERN  REVERSIONS  147 

scenery  are  its  true  kingdom.  At  the  same  time 
it  strays  with  open-eyed  and  sweet  audacity  into 
any  region  and  any  time.  Even  Wordsworth, 
severely  modern  though  he  be,  gives  us  two  grave 
classical  studies,  and  a  romance,  "  The  White 
Doe,"  where  spiritual  interest  finds  its  true  home 
in  a  mediaeval  setting.  But  for  the  most  part 
the  Georgian  poets  turn  rather  to  the  world  of 
dream  than  of  history.  The  seas  over  which  sails 
the  Ancient  Mariner  of  Coleridge  are  swayed  by 
no  earthly  tides,  while  Shelley's  greatest  drama 
takes  place,  if  not  in  the  cloudland  of  dawn,  then 
among  the  mere  shades  of  an  imaginary  Hellas. 
"Lamia,"  "Hyperion,"  the  "Eve  of  St.  Agnes," 
are  no  poems  of  remembered  fleshly  fact.  They 
waft  to  us  the  breath  of  faery -lands  forlorn, 
though  of  faery -lands  where  lives  forever  the 
ideal  truth  of  distant  climes  and  ages.  We  must 
turn  to  the  Victorians  if  we  would  find  a  poetry  v 
of  definite  historic  inspiration  and  a  conscious, 
scholarly  effort  to  reproduce  by  the  imagination 
an  actual  past.  And  here  we  find  almost  an  en- 
tire literature,  complete  in  itself,  formed  by  for- 
eign influences. 

Clough  is  the  only  Victorian  consistently  mod- 
ern. The  longest  and  most  ambitious  poems  of 
Tennyson  and  Matthew  Arnold  find  their  themes 
in  strange  countries  or  bygone  times.  True, 
these  poems  are  not  the  most  vital,  and  "In  Me- 
moriam  "  and  "The  Grande  Chartreuse "  will  be 
remembered  when  the  "Idylls  of  the  King"  and 
"Balder  Dead"  are  forgotten.  But  in  the  pre- 


148  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

Raphaelites,  Rossetti,  Morris,  and  Swinburne,  we 
have  a  group  of  poets  to  whom  escape  from  the 
present  is  almost  a  battle-cry,  and  the  entire  body 
of  whose  work  is  infused  with  the  blood  of  ages 
past  though  not  dead.  It  is  a  positive  shock  when, 
as  in  Rossetti 's  "Jenny,"  a  terrible  modern  fact 
invades  their  region  of  memories.  Yet  our  most 
modern  and  realistic  poet  has  perhaps  excelled,  in 
his  interpretation  of  the  past,  even  the  acknow- 
ledged votaries  of  days  that  are  no  more.  The 
vigorous  spirit  of  Browning  roams  over  all  the 
world,  scanning  the  island  off  the  coasts  of  Leba- 
non as  the  wolf -haunted  forests  of  Russia.  From 
"Paracelsus,"  more  full  of  the  spirit  of  Luther's 
Germany  than  the  casual  reader  dreams,  and  "  Sor- 
dello,"  more  full  of  the  spirit  and  facts  of  pre- 
Dantean  Italy  than  the  casual  reader  likes,  on 
through  dramas  and  monologues  and  epics  to  the 
mobile  and  vivid  Hellenic  studies  of  his  later 
years,  Browning  shows  a  more  frankly  human  and 
unsesthetic  interest  in  the  past  and  a  wider  sym- 
pathy than  any  other  poet. 

Taking  our  modern  English  poetry  in  its  entire 
sweep,  we  find  hardly  a  country  and  hardly  a  cen- 
tury to  which  it  has  not  turned.  Even  the  eigh- 
teenth century  finds  slight  but  daintily  wrought 
revival  in  the  verse  of  Dobson  and  Lang.  The 
imagination  has  strayed  from  Scandinavia  to  the 
Orient,  from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  present 
day. 

This  vigorous  modern  movement  towards  the 


MODERN  REVERSIONS  149 

past  finds  close  parallel  in  the  literary  renais- 
sance of  Elizabethan  England.  Then  TheRenais- 
Shakespeare,  with  superb  indifference,  and  new. 
drew  Macbeth  from  his  Scottish  moor,  Lear  from 
the  wild  wastes  of  Britain,  Coriolanus  from  the 
streets  of  Rome,  Theseus  from  Athens,  and  Ariel 
from  faery  -  land,  to  the  English  stage.  Then 
his  contemporaries,  only  less  greatly  inclusive, 
reached  to  Italy  for  a  White  Devil,  to  Sparta  for 
a  Calantha,  to  Eome  for  an  ^Ecius  and  a  Virgin- 
ius,  while  Spenser  in  the  "Faerie  Queene"  gave 
us  an  enchanted  medley  of  classical  learning  and 
chivalrous  tale.  In  the  passionate  impulse  to 
break  all  bounds  of  contemporary  fact,  to  explore 
the  learning  and  reproduce  the  images  of  the  past, 
our  own  age  and  the  renaissance  are  one.  As  we 
place  them  side  by  side  we  see  that  we  to-day  have 
lived  unconsciously  through  a  second  renaissance, 
mighty  as  the  first.  Ours,  too,  has  been  a  time 
when  not  only  the  imagination  but  the  spirit  of 
man  has  sprung  eagerly  to  hail  the  ideals  of  the 
past,  to  absorb  their  very  life,  and  to  repeat  them 
in  a  world  that  had  forgotten  their  message.  The 
New  Renaissance !  Surely  the  future  will  note  it, 
and  will  signal  the  influence  of  the  past  in  the 
poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  correlative 
with  the  influence  of  science,  or  of  democracy 
itself. 

But  between  the  method  of  the  first  renaissance 
and  of  our  own  there  is  wide  difference.  The 
Elizabethans  invaded  the  classical  world  with  the 
daring  and  rapture  of  youth,  swept  its  ideals  bod- 


150  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

ily  into  their  own  England,  arrayed  them  in  the 
dress  of  the  period,  and  forced  them  to  do  homage 
to  their  Queen.  The  moderns,  graver  and  more 
reverent,  perhaps  more  languid  as  well,  reverse 
the  process.  They  take  us  by  the  hand  and  lead 
us  gently  backward,  quite  out  of  our  own  world 
of  forms  and  thought,  into  past  regions  where  men 
and  women  "in  their  habit  as  they  lived"  move 
inviolate  and  serene.  The  Elizabethans  translated 
the  past  into  terms  of  their  own  present;  we  of 
the  later  days  seek  at  least  to  translate  our  pres-  - 
ent  into  terms  of  the  unvarying  past.  The  tradi- 
tions of  the  elder  world  have  always  been  a  store- 
house of  delight  for  the  poets ;  but  from  the  ancient 
heroes  metamorphosed  into  Christian  knights  of 
the  medieval  epic  to  the  Cato  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  wig  and  buckles,  every  age  has  shaped 
old  forms  to  its  own  image.  Even  in  the  days  of 
Shakespeare,  the  material  was  largely  subdued  to 
what  it  works  in,  and  the  assimilation  of  past  to 
present  is  frankly  naive.  Broad  traditional  dis- 
tinctions are  of  course  observed.  Something  of 
the  true  Roman  flows  from  the  pages  of  Plutarch 
into  the  veins  of  Brutus.  Cleopatra  breathes  full 
East  upon  us,  and  the  still  swift  passion  of  Sparta 
tingles  through  the  Calantha  of  Ford,  as  she 
dances,  smiles,  and  dies.  Yet  after  all  the  heroes 
v  of  Shakespeare  are  English  at  heart,  though  the 
Eoman  side  of  the  Englishman  be  recognized  in 
Coriolanus,  the  Northern  trend  towards  specula- 
tion in  Hamlet  the  Dane.  What  insight  into 
alien  ideals  is  found,  is  purely  instinctive;  for 


MODERN  REVERSIONS  151 

historic  truthfulness,   take  it  for  all  in  all,   the 
Elizabethans  cared  not  one  whit. 

But  the  nineteenth  century  demands,  in  its  re- 
productions of  the  past,  historic  accuracy  both  of  / 
form  and  spirit.     Our  characters  are  of  their  own 

e,  not  only  in  name  but  in  costume,  not  only  in 
costume  but  in  character.  Swinburne's  Althaea 
is,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  a  real  Greek  matron, 
in  severe  beauty,  brief  speech,  and  bitter  passion. 
The  true  Middle  Age  of  missal  and  cathedral 
speaks  through  Tennyson's  St.  Simeon  upon  his 
pillar.  Browning  condenses  the  first  renaissance 
into  a  monologue. 

We  have  to-day  for  the  first  time  in  poetry  a 
genuine,  impassioned,  imaginative  impulse  to  re- 
produce the  actual  truth  of  the  past.  A  new 
diversity  of  accent  takes  the  place  of  the  old  same- 
ness, and  our  poetry  becomes  a  criticism  of  life  in 
a  more  extensive  sense  than  Arnold  meant.  That 
our  work  is  really  true  to  the  past  is  of  course 
impossible  for  us  to  say.  We  can  hardly  doubt, 
indeed,  that  through  it  all  there  breathes  a  subtle 
aroma  of  the  nineteenth  century,  an  air  which  had 
it  touched  the  temples  of  a  man  of  older  days 
would  have  startled  and  alarmed  him  with  the 
sense  of  something  new  blown  from  the  fields  of 
sleep  of  the  future.  Yet  that  our  revivals  of  the 
ideals  long  since  fled  are  beautiful,  no  one  can 
deny ;  and,  better  than  all  archaeology,  they  bring 
the  past  near  to  us  and  touch  its  marble  to  the 
semblance  of  life. 


152  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

It  is  not  hard  to  see  in  a  measure  why  our  age 
should  have  been  first  to  attempt  a  genuine  revival 
of  the  past.  Such  revival  is,  at  least  in  part,  the 
gift  to  art  of  the  modern  critical  spirit.  For  the 
spirit  of  criticism  and  the  spirit  of  creation,  how- 
ever they  may  square  and  spar,  must  wed  at  last. 
Our  passion  for  historical  knowledge,  our  studious 
energies,  may  indeed  become  ends  in  themselves, 
and  for  a  while  seem  to  stifle  the  creative  imagi- 
nation, confirming  the  doleful  plaint  of  that  lit- 
erary pessimist  who  is  always  with  us.  But  in 
process  of  time,  new  worlds  open  to  our  intellec- 
tual vision  must  always  afford  the  stimulus  of  a 
wider  range  to  the  imaginative  powers.  Already 
the  new  heritage  is  to  a  great  degree  realized,  and 
the  poets  are  vivifying  the  results  of  historical 
research. 

Yet  the  critical  spirit  by  itself  could  never  be 
the  source  of  poetry.  Increased  knowledge  may 
mean  in  verse  mere  weight  without  fire.  The 
mass  of  fact  must  be  "bedded  in  a  quickening 
soul,"  to  use  Wordsworth's  fine  phrase.  It  must 
be  by  a  spiritual  impulse  that  our  poetry  of  the 
new  renaissance  is  redeemed  from  a  display  of 
dry  erudition,  or  a  cold  imitation  of  dead  forms. 
A  true  kinship  of  soul  must  draw  the  imagination 
of  men  to  the  past.  Such  kinship  lends  to  our 
poetry  of  reproduction  spontaneity,  vitality,  the 
actual  note  of  experience.  As  Keats  pores  over 
the  "Dictionary  of  Mythology,"  a  flash  of  recog- 
nition reveals  to  him  his  own  country,  and  Endym- 
ion  appears.  If  Swinburne  exults  in  paganism, 


MODERN  REVERSIONS  153 

Browning  in  the  renaissance,  it  is  because  these 
periods  are  their  true  abiding-place. 

It  is  the  spiritual  restlessness  of  the  age  which 
is  the  secret  of  our  singular  power  to  penetrate 
and  reveal  the  inner  life  of  the  past.  Our  times 
are  an  epitome  of  history:  and  they  are  ill  at 
ease.  Ghosts  of  the  past  blend  with  shadows  of 
the  future,  and  the  life  that  is  to  be  is  not  yet 
manifest.  Bewildered,  the  sons  of  time  wander 
through  this  dim  land  of  cross-lights  and  confused 
darkness,  seeking  among  conflicting  ideals  for  the 
simplicity  of  truth.  Small  wonder  that  no  one 
man,  however  many-sided,  can  feel  fully  at  home 
in  the  modern  world ;  small  wonder  that  the  poets, 
whose  instinct  ever  seeks  for  peace,  should  escape 
by  varying  roads  from  a  region  where  all  ideals 
are  found  and  no  one  ideal  is  untroubled,  to  that 
past  where  their  spirits  may  find  their  own  true 
country  uninvaded  by  hostile  hosts,  and  breathe 
their  native  air  untainted  by  strange  aromas. 
The  Modern  Renaissance!  It  springs,  not  alone 
from  the  scholarly  passion  for  research  nor  from 
the  kindling  of  the  imagination,  but  from  the  fel- 
lowship of  the  spirit  with  the  ages  that  are  fled. 

Thus  the  poetry  of  our  new  renaissance  is 
modern  after  all.  Our  poets  seek  their  own  true 
and  eternal  present  in  those  ages  which  The  periods 
have  died  but  to  rise  again,  in  spiritual 
form.  Our  poetry  of  reversion  has  a  freshness  of 
passion  that  sets  at  naught  all  charge  of  insin- 
cerity. It  is  genuine,  vital,  personal.  The  spirit 


154  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

of  to-day  speaks  through  it,  or  rather  many  spirits, 
such  as  govern  these  latter  times. 

Almost  every  age  and  country  has  given  mate- 
rial to  the  eager  search  of  our  poets;  but  much  of 
this  material  is  touched  slightly  or  used  for  liter- 
ary experience.  Our  Russian,  Oriental,  Japanese 
studies,  for  instance,  are  the  mere  pastimes  of  an 
hour.  The  literary  and  critical  instinct  are  pres- 
ent, but  the  spiritual  affinity  is  not  there.  Again, 
there  is  special  significance  in  the  failure  of  one 
whole  order  of  life  to  touch  our  modern  poetry. 
With  the  savage  and  the  primeval,  our  poets  have 
nothing  in  common.  The  revolution  had  witnessed 
a  strong  reversion  of  sympathy  towards  this  life. 
Such  reversion  is  the  inspiration  of  Chateaubriand 
and  Rousseau,  who  imagine  virgin  forests  in  which 
they  would  have  been  supremely  wretched,  and 
picture  the  career  of  Red  Indians  as  an  ideal  of 
purity  and  peace.  The  return  to  nature  was  the 
great  watchword  of  the  times ;  and  if  this  return 
as  imaged  by  French  genius  was  a  little  operatic, 
it  was  heartfelt  as  well.  We  get  the  echo  of  this 
enthusiasm  in  Byron.  The  chosen  life  of  his  Cor- 
sairs is  such  as  to  make  the  Red  Indian  seem  mild. 
But  after  Byron's  day  the  passion  for  the  savage 
swiftly  died.  Our  Victorians  are  drawn  to  imagi- 
native sympathy  with  ages  widely  different  from 
their  own,  but  these  ages  are  all  highly  civilized. 
It  is  in  peaks  "citied  to  the  top,  crowded  with 
culture,"  that  the  modern  man  finds  himself  at 
home. 


MODERN  REVERSIONS  155 

Three  ages  have  held  supremely  the  imagination 
of  our  poets. 

The  first  is  the  period  of  Hellenism,  and  it  is 
interesting  to  see  that  our  classical  revival  finds 
its  inspiration  in  Greece.  The  classical  revival 
of  the  sixteenth  century  turned  mainly  to  Home. 
The  practical  power  of  Rome,  its  noble  patriot- 
ism, its  spirit  of  conquest,  were  congenial  to  the 
compeers  of  Raleigh.  The  Roman  plays  of  Shake- 
speare are  firm  flesh  and  bone:  his  "Pericles"  is 
a  dream.  Webster's  "Appius  and  Virginia," 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  "Valentinian,"  are  noble 
instances  of  the  Roman  impulse.  But  our  own 
neo-paganism,  from  Keats  to  Arnold  and  Swin- 
,  burne,  is  almost  wholly  Greek :  and  it  is  mighty. 

Only  less  strong  than  the  hold  of  Greece  has 
been  the  hold  of  the  Middle  Ages  on  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  poets. 

But  it  is  the  reproduction  of  the  first  renais- 
sance which  is  the  most  curious,  startling,  and 
novel  feature  of  our  new  movement  towards  the 
past.  For  here  is  the  reflection  of  a  reflection, 
the  shadow  of  a  shade.  Yet  in  robust  vitality  as 
in  faithfulness  of  reproduction,  our  poems  inspired 
by  the  renaissance  are  unsurpassed. 

In  the  modern  world,  old  Greece  lives  again; 
the  Middle  Ages  become  once  more  vocal,  the 
renaissance  yet  glimmers  with  bewildering  bril- 
liancy. Let  us  enter  these  little  worlds  that  lie 
like  inclosed  gardens  within  the  great  and  free 
nature  of  our  modern  English  poets. 


156  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

2.  Neo- Paganism 

Neo-Paganism !  Not  one  modern  poet  of  repute 
has  been  untouched  by  it,  and  in  some  poets  it  is 
a  dominant  power.  The  great  name  of  Landor 
must  be  either  dwelt  on  at  length  or  passed  over  in 
silence,  and  the  second  alternative  must  be  ours. 
Our  regret  is  the  less  because  in  spite  of  "Peri- 
cles and  Aspasia,"  Landor 's  paganism  is  rather 
Roman  than  Greek  in  type,  and  its  superb  robust- 
ness finds  small  fellowship  in  the  modern  world. 
But  among  the  sons  of  the  present  age,  what 
range,  variety,  and  freshness  in  classical  reproduc- 
tions ! 

"  Surely  I  dreamed  to-day,  or  did  I  see 
The  winged  Psyche  with  awakened  eyes  ?  " 

queried  Keats.  Youngest  born  of  the  company  of 
heaven,  this  Psyche -wanderer  has  floated  through 
the  inner  world  of  the  poets,  leading  a  train  that 
seems  to  catch  from  her  the  gleam  of  grave  spir- 
itual loveliness.  The  visions  of  Keats  are  first, 
assuredly,  Endymion,  Hyperion,  and  Lamia,  with 
their  attendant  Titans,  nymphs,  and  men.  Words- 
worth's Laodamia  and  Dion  follow;  then  the  Pro- 
metheus of  Shelley,  with  Panthea,  lone,  and  Asia, 
those  spirits  whose  form  is  of  Hellas  though  their 
soul  be  of  eternal  nature.  In  the  Victorian  age, 
we  have  first  the  classical  studies  of  Tennyson, 
^Enone,  Ulysses,  Tithonus,  the  Lotus  -  Eaters, 
where  instinctive  romanticism  of  treatment  is 
subtly  held  in  check  by  a  certain  pure  Greek  tem- 
perance. Arnold's  whole  work  breathes  of  Hellas, 


NEO-PAGANISM  157 

and  his  most  considerable  poem,  "Empedocles  on 
-3Dtna,"  is  Greek  in  theme.  Swinburne,  in  his 
"Hymn  to  Proserpine,"  vaunts  himself,  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career,  the  champion  of  the  pagan 
revival,  and  in  two  noble  tragedies,  "Atalanta  in 
Calydon "  and  "Erechtheus,"  reproduces,  as  was 
never  done  before  or  since,  the  perfect  form  of 
the  Greek  drama.  ,  Half  the  stories  in  Morris's 
"Earthly  Paradise"  are  Greek.  Finally,  even 
Browning,  in  his  old  age,  turns  aside  from  the 
heavy  air  of  the  renaissance,  freighted  with  memo- 
ries and  passions,  to  the  cooler  atmosphere  of 
Greek  thought.  His  translations  from  the  drama 
are  cleverly  interwoven  with  subtle  studies  of 
Greek  life.  "Aristophanes'  Apology"  is  marvel- 
ous in  its  concise  and  realistic  rendering  of  Greek 
society;  and  Balaustion,  one  of  Browning's  sweet- 
est creations,  is  radiant  with  pure  Hellenic  maid- 
enhood. 

This  lovely  neo-pagan  poetry,  standing  as  it 
does  quite  apart  in  the  great  body  of  modern  liter- 
ature, has  a  distinct  and  interesting  development 
of  its  own.  It  passes  from  an  unconscious  and 
spontaneous  passion  for  Greek  ideals  of  beauty, 
through  grave  sympathy  with  Greek  ideals  of 
ethics,  to  a  defiant  and  conscious  adoption  of 
Greek  ideals  of  religion.  Each  neo-pagan  poet 
expresses  indeed  in  a  measure  all  these  three  in- 
stincts ;  yet  it  is  hardly  fantastic  to  say  that  Keats 
is  the  best  exponent  of  the  first  phase,  Arnold  of 
the  second,  and  Swinburne  of  the  third.  Brown- 
ing stands  somewhat  aside  from  the  others ;  for  his 


158  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

classic  work,  with  all  its  brilliancy,  has  a  purely 
intellectual  inspiration,  and  springs  from  no  deep 
emotional  sympathy. 

Our  neo  -  paganism  to-day  is  emphatically  the 
product  of  a  reaction.  It  springs  from  a  pro- 
The  .Esthe-  f ound  discontent  with  the  modern  world. 

tic  Attrac-       o  .  .  TTTI 

tion.  ouch  conscious  discontent  is  new.      What 

son  of  Elizabeth  would  have  chosen  to  be  -a  son 
of  Pericles?  What  compeer  of  Pope  would  have 
abjured  knee  breeches  in  favor  of  the  chiton  ? 
Spenser  might  with  superb  freedom  clothe  his 
classic  figures  in  the  iridescent  garb  of  the  renais- 
sance, Addison  in  the  correct  and  courtly  cos- 
tume of  his  day.  But  the  moderns  have  not  been 
content  with  borrowing  from  the  past  fair  names 
and  noble  tales.  It  is  very  Greece  that  lives  for 
us  in  their  pages:  for  the  former  times  seem  to 
them  better  than  their  own.  Complacency  is  no 
note  of  our  poetry,  and  only  the  cheapest  and  the 
loftiest  thought  can  to-day  be  content  with  its  age. 
This  strong  reaction  against  modern  life  shows 
itself  first  and  chief  in  the  instinctive  joy  in  Greek 
ideals  of  beauty.  It  is  hard  for  a  lover  of  beauty 
to  be  at  home  in  the  nineteenth  century,  unless, 
like  Wordsworth  or  Thoreau,  he  escape  to  the  free 
communion  of  nature.  Too  comfortable  to  be 
lovely,  sensitive  imaginations  roam  restless  and 
exiled  through  a  luxurious  world :  escaping  to  the 
past  of  Hellas,  they  find  the  home  of  their  desires, 
a  sphere  where  dignity  is  the  garment  of  beauty, 
and  serenity  the  secret  of  charm. 


NEO-PAGANISM  159 

"  Not  here,  0  Apollo, 
Are  haunts  meet  for  thee, 
But  where  Helicon  breaks  down 
In  cliff  to  the  sea." 

Early  in  the  century,  this  impulse  asserted  itself 
with  joyous,  large  impetuosity. 

"  The  naiad  mid  her  reeds 
Pressed  her  cold  finger  closer  to  her  lips," 

yet  Keats  read  her  secrets  and  led  her  lovingly  into 
the  light  of  modern  day.  The  classicism  of  Keats 
results  from  no  close  scholarship  and  aims  at  no 
technical  accuracy,  like  that  of  the  later  poets ;  yet 
into  his  marvelous,  lavish,  careless  poems  has 
passed  the  very  spirit  of  old  pagan  joy,  the  crea- 
tive impulse  of  the  maker  of  myths.  The  light 
of  suns  and  moons  long  set  for  us  plays  serene 
over  these  exquisite  creations,  that  people  the 
natural  world  with  tender  forms  of  life.  Forever 
must  we  love  and  they  be  fair.  As  the  century 
advances,  the  passion  for  Greek  beauty  becomes 
less  simple,  more  involved  with  other  elements 
than  in  the  spontaneous  verse  of  Keats;  yet  it  is 
never  absent.  The  cool  freshness  of  a  Grecian 
dawn  breathes  through  Arnold's  "Strayed  Revel- 
ler;" the  hushed  sense  of  the  present  God  rests 
on  Browning's  " Pheidippides ; "  and  youths  and 
maidens  from  a  temple-frieze  move  in  marble 
beauty  though  the  tragedies  of  Swinburne. 

The  very  style  of  our  poets  feels  strongly  the 
classic  influence.  Let  them  fall  under  the  spell 
of  Greece,  and  their  instinctive  romanticism  of 
manner  gives  place  to  an  accent  precise  and  pure. 


160  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

Even  those  most  ornate  by  nature  can  reach  at 
times  a  reticent  perfectness,  free  from  all  sense  of 
effort  that  outruns  attainment,  of  mystery  unuttered 
below  the  spoken  word.  It  is  in  echoes  which  if 
faint  are  yet  Homeric  that  the  young  Tennyson, 
forgetting  his  fretwork  phrases,  writes :  — 

"  On  one  side  lay  the  ocean,  and  on  one 
Lay  a  great  water,  and  the  moon  was  full."  1 

The  large  utterance  of  the  early  gods  sounds 
through  "Hyperion."  Swinburne  of  exuberant 
melody  describes  for  us,  with  something  of  the 
wide  simplicity  and  tempered  truth  of  an  older 
artistic  method,  his  Arcadian  Atalanta :  — 

"  Holier  than  all  holy  days  or  things, 

Than  sprinkled  water  or  fume  of  perfect  fire, 
Chaste,  dedicated  to  pure  prayers,  and  filled 
With  higher  thoughts  than  heaven  ;  a  maiden  clean, 
Pure  iron,  fashioned  for  a  sword." 

Another  aspect  of  Greek  style  —  its  amazing  con- 
ciseness, its  abrupt,  almost  rough,  realism,  charged 
with  subdued  fervor  —  has  naturally  attracted 
Browning.  From  such  poems  as  "Echetlos"  or 
"Pheidippides,"  the  superfluous  has  been  ban- 
ished as  cleanly  as  from  the  limbs  of  a  Greek 
athlete  or  from  the  choruses  of  .ZEschylus. 

The  genuine  Greek  spirit  works,  needless  to 
say,  imperfectly  in  our  neo-pagan  poetry.  Neither 
Greek  manner  nor  Greek  conception  is  long  sus- 
tained, untouched  by  the  modern  note.  Yet  a 
distinct  modification  in  the  classical  direction 
surely  affects  theme  as  well  as  form.  Chthonia, 
Callicles,  Balaustion,  are  of  the  race  of  Antigone. 

1  Morte  &  Arthur. 


NEO-PAGANISM  161 

Tranquil  in  every  controlled  curve,  in  every  rev- 
erent thought,  these  figures  allure  and  charm. 
Theirs  is  no  northern  mystery  of  shadow,  relieved 
by  dim  reluctant  light ;  it  is  the  mystery  of  entire 
light,  relieved  by  pale,  pure  shadow.  The  un- 
stained harmony  of  the  Greek  ideals  draws  our 
poets  of  an  alien  age  to  itself.  Tumultuous  and 
feverish,  we  would  return  to  an  untroubled  calm 
—  the  calm  of  the  young  Apollo,  as  he  gazes  from 
the  Vatican  across  seething  Christian  Rome :  — 

"  Radiance  Invincible  !     Is  that  the  brow 
Which  gleamed  on  Python  while  thy  arrow  sped  ? 
Are  those  the  lips  for  Hyacinthus  dead 
That  grieved  ?     Wherefore  a  God  indeed  art  thou : 
For  all  we  toil  with  ill,  and  the  hours  bow 
And  break  us,  and  at  best  when  we  have  bled, 
And  are  much  marred,  perchance  propitiated 
A  little  doubtful  victory  they  allow  : 
We  sorrow,  and  henceforth  the  lip  retains 
A  shade,  and  the  eyes  shine  and  wonder  less. 
O  joyous  Slayer  of  evil  things !     0  great 
And  splendid  Victor  !     God,  whom  no  soil  stains 
Of  passion  or  doubt,  of  grief  or  languidness, 
Even  to  worship  thee  I  come  too  late."  1 

Is  it  too  late  ?     Or  may  we  hope  to  realize  the 
vision  of  Shelley  ? 

"  Another  Athens  shall  arise, 

And  to  remoter  time 
Bequeath,  like  sunset  to  the  skies, 

The  splendor  of  its  prime  ; 
And  leave,  if  nought  so  bright  may  live, 
All  earth  can  take  or  heaven  can  give."  2 

Already,  in  thinking  of  the  passion  for  Hellenic 
beauty,  we  have  been  led  to  the  modern  fellowship 

1  Edward  Dowden.  2  Chorus  to  Hellas. 


162  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

with  Hellenic  ethics.  For  to  the  Greek,  beauty 
and  life  were  one.  Moral  as  physical  loveliness 
The  Etwcai  springs  f rom  discarding  the  superfluous, 
Attraction.  and  the  principie  of  control  in  art  be- 

comes  the  principle  of  self-restraint  in  morals. 
It  is  sympathy  with  this  grave  "ascesis"  that  in 
an  age  of  passion  often  unchecked,  always  con- 
fused, has  led  our  poets  to  Hellenism;  it  is  the 
absence  of  such  sympathy  which  makes  the  classic 
revivals  of  the  first  renaissance  alien  to  the  true 
Greek  spirit.  Early  in  the  century,  Wordsworth's 
calm  nature  felt  and  rendered  the  high  ideal.  His 
"Laodamia,"  with  its  severe  tenderness  and  its 
stern  lesson,  stands  among  his  other  poems  as  a 
small,  pure  Doric  temple  might  stand  among  the 
clouds  and  forests  of  Delphi.  The  whole  classic 
doctrine  of  self-restraint  is  in  the  words  of  Protesi- 
laus :  — 

"  Be  taught,  O  faithful  consort,  to  control 

Rebellious  passion  :  for  the  gods  approve 
The  depth  and  not  the  tumult  of  the  soul, 
A  fervent,  not  ungovernable  love." 

Poise  and  symmetry!  How  wistfully  they  are 
sought,  in  a  time  when  the  enlarged  scope  and 
increased  haste  of  life  seem  to  render  self-know- 
ledge impossible  and  tranquillity  a  dream.  Even 
Tennyson,  whose  few  classic  studies  are  on  the 
whole  far  more  romantic  in  manner  than  those  of 
any  other  poet,  has  felt  the  sway  of  this  Greek 
ideal.  The  danger  of  aspiration!  The  duty  of 
sobriety!  In  legend,  as  of  Phaeton,  of  Actseon, 
the  Greek  loved  to  point  it  out.  Tennyson  has 


NEO-PAGANISM  163 

seized  on  one  of  these  legends,  and  with  delicate 
modern  insight  has  revealed  its  mystical  meaning. 
His  Tithonus,  human  and  finite,  suffers  eternally 
from  a  granted  immortality  which  he  cannot  now 
escape.  "The  gods  themselves  cannot  recall  their 
gifts."  Better  not  reach  beyond  the  common  lot. 
Better  the  regulation  of  desire  than  the  grasp  at  a 
star  that  may  burn. 

But  if  Keats  reflects  most  spontaneously  and 
completely  the  marvelous  beauty  of  Greece,  Mat- 
thew Arnold  is  the  most  perfect  exponent  of  Hel- 
lenic ethics,  as  conceived  by  the  modern  mind. 
In  Arnold,  neo-paganism  becomes  self-conscious. 
The  reticence  and  distinctness  of  the  Greek  spirit 
mould  both  his  form  and  his  thought.  To  him, 
as  to  the  Greek,  outreach  into  the  Infinite  is 
''Y/fyts,  —  arrogance,  madness,  death.  He  seeks  to 
enforce  the  gospel  of  sobriety  in  his  longest  and 
most  important  poem,  "Empedocles  on  ^Etna." 
The  hero  chosen  is  the  most  romantic  and  myste- 
riously passionate  figure  among  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers; the  artistic  method  selected  by  Arnold  is 
rigidly  plain,  chiseled  and  severe.  Weary  and 
worn,  Empedocles,  with  a  wondering,  ignorant 
friend,  leaves  the  hot  city  and  climbs  the  cool 
slopes  of  ^Etna.  The  songs  of  Callicles,  the 
young  harp-player,  chaste,  sad,  tempered  to  per- 
fect beauty,  follow  them  as  they  climb.  The 
philosopher  with  benignant  majesty  opens  to  his 
friend  his  best  wisdom,  tells  him  the  strength 
wherewith  life  may  be  met,  the  end  for  which  he 
may  strive.  It  is  the  message  of  contentment 


€        OF  THE  '        >v 

[VERSITT) 
OF  ./ 


164  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

with  common  joy  and  quiet  duties.  It  excludes 
sorrowfully  but  decidedly  all  illusion  of  a  possible 
knowledge  of  the  Divine,  all  striving  after  an  in- 
finite good.  In  stately  lines,  Empedocles  preaches 
the  moderation  of  desire,  the  cheerful  courage  of 
renunciation :  — 

"  Fools !  that  in  man's  brief  term 

He  cannot  all  things  view, 
Affords  no  ground  to  affirm 

That  there  are  gods  who  do ; 
Nor  does  being  weary  prove  that  he  has  where  to  rest. 

"Once  read  thy  own  breast  right, 

And  thou  hast  done  with  fears  ; 
Man  gets  no  other  light 

Search  he  a  thousand  years. 
Sink  in  thyself !     There  ask  what  ails  thee,  at  that  shrine." 

Self -dependence  man's  only  strength  —  such  is 
the  grave  summary  of  Empedocles.  The  English 
poet,  putting  it  into  his  mouth,  gives  us  his  own 
conception  of  the  central  thought  of  ancient  Greece. 
From  this  conviction,  so  Arnold  would  tell  us, 
sprang  the  perfectness  of  the  Hellenic  ideal. 
Pressed  down  within  the  positive  and  human,  sat- 
isfied, or  if  not  satisfied,  silent,  the  Greek  was 
able,  because  of  his  very  acceptance  of  limitation, 
to  realize,  as  has  never  elsewhere  been  realized  in 
East  or  West,  the  beauty,  intellectual  and  physi- 
cal, of  the  purely  natural  life. 


The  kinship  between  our  neo-pagans  and  the 
The  spirit-     Hellenic  world  is  at  heart  spiritual.     No 

ualAttrac-  .«_-••_-•  ^i  i     •  i 

tion.  mere  aesthetic  instinct,  though  in  un beau- 

tiful days  this  is  vivid,  no  mere  desire  for  Greek 


NEO-PAGANISM  165 

self  -  control,  though  in  tumultuous  days  this  is 
blessed,  but  a  religious  affinity  draws  the  modern 
poets  to  that  mighty  pagan  past. 

To  many  modern  imaginations,  the  two  thou- 
sand years  of  Christianity  seem  a  parenthesis  in 
the  world's  story,  a  dream  that  is  fading  away. 
We  who  awake  from  dream  need  help  to  find  our 
sanity,  in  the  actual  world:  where  can  we  look 
more  eagerly  than  to  a  civilization,  perfect  and 
supreme,  built  up  not  on  mystic  delusion  but  on 
natural  fact?  The  return  to  the  ancient  attitude 
towards  life  is  not  only  an  emotional  luxury,  but 
to  many  minds  a  serious  necessity  if  we  are  to  be 
loyal  to  experience. 

Greek  civilization  as  seen  through  modern  eyes 
appears  to  build  up  its  haughty,  blithe  placidity 
upon  the  law  of  sacrifice.  Cease  restless  ques- 
tioning of  vacancy;  content  thyself  within  the 
limits  of  the  human  and  the  known.  "Because 
thou  must  not  dream,  thou  needst  not  then  de- 
spair." Such  are  the  injunctions  of  Empedocles 
for  Pausanias,  the  "good,  friendly  man "  who  is 
to  return  to  the  daily  life  of  the  city.  Does  the 
message  satisfy  Empedocles  or  his  creator  ? 

For  Pausanias,  it  suffices;  for  Empedocles,  it 
fails.  "A  naked,  eternally  restless  mind,"  devoid 
of  peace,  devoid  of  hope,  weary  of  action,  the 
thinker  precipitates  himself  upon  the  Final  Mys- 
tery, and,  plunging  into  the  red-hot  crater  of 
.ZEtna,  sets  at  naught  his  own  philosophy.  Sui- 
cide, the  escape  from  life,  is  the  end  of  his  gospel 
of  limitation. 


166  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

Half  reluctantly,  as  it  were,  the  meditative  and 
dignified  neo-paganism  of  Arnold  ends  in  sadness 
and  death.  But  it  is  in  Swinburne,  not  in  Arnold, 
that  the  neo-pagan  movement  becomes  charged 
with  religious  fervor  and  reaches  a  defiant  climax. 
He  is  most  passionately  and  completely  pagan. 
The  restricted  and  sorrowful  gospel  of  Chris- 
tianity is  intensely  repugnant  to  the  immense  sen- 
suous and  aesthetic  vitality  of  the  poet,  whose  one 
cry  is  the  glorification  of  natural  freedom :  — 

"  Wilt  thou  take  all,  Galilean  ?    But  these  thou  shalt  not  take  : 
The  laurel,  the  palms  and  the  pasan,  the  breasts  of  the  nymphs 
in  the  brake."  * 

Arnold  and  Swinburne,  strangely  different  in  im- 
aginative make-up  and  ethical  temper,  meet  in 
their  paganism.  But  the  paganism  of  Arnold  is 
regretful;  that  of  Swinburne  is  exultant.  To 
Arnold,  Christianity  is  a  fair  dream  lost :  to  Swin- 
burne a  horror  escaped.  Instinctively  Christian, 
Arnold  adopted  the  pagan  interpretation  of  life 
with  reluctant  yet  deliberate  decision :  instinctively 
pagan,  Swinburne  recognized  Christianity  only 
that  he  might  denounce.  ^The  fine  drama  "Ata- 
lanta  in  Calydon,"  modeled  severely  on  the  Greek, 
supreme  in  reproduction  of  classic  beauty  and 
classic  sentiment,  marks  surely  the  climax  of  neo- 
paganism  among  the  modern  poets.  And  this 
drama  carries  the  religious  ideal  of  our  neo- 
paganism  farther  even  than  it  is  carried  by  Ar- 
nold, farther  indeed  than  it  was  ever  carried  by 

1  Hymn  to  Proserpine. 


NEO-PAGANISM  167 

the  reticent  Greek.  All  the  elements  here  coexist 
in  perfect  unison.  Nowhere  is  the  pure -tinted 
statuesque  beauty  of  the  Greek  more  perfectly 
rendered  than  in  Swinburne's  pictures.  Atalanta, 
maid-huntress,  "rose-colored  and  cold  like  very 
dawn,  golden  and  godlike,"  stands  with  her  hounds 
in  leash  statue-fair.  Young  Meleager,  companion 
of  Jason,  has  stepped  from  a  Pan-Athenaic  proces- 
sion; and  his  energy,  religious  in  simplicity  and 
sweet,  strong  life,  breathes  the  spirit  of  the 
Spring.  Altha3a  the  matron  is  truly  of  the  race  of 
Clytemnestra,  a  grand  and  sombre  figure,  shad- 
owed by  the  wings  of  Fate.  The  details  of  the 
poem  in  dialogue  and  description,  are  rendered 
with  a  finish  exquisitely  Greek.  The  ethical  out- 
look also,  the  very  attitude  of  the  old  drama,  is 
preserved  with  scrupulous  truthfulness.  But  it  is 
the  religious  ideal  which  pervades  the  ethics  and 
gives  point  to  the  beauty  of  the  "Atalanta  in 
Calydon."  And  this  ideal  is  bitter  with  the  bit- 
terness of  death.  For  the  central  theme  is  the  vio- 
lation of  law,  and  the  inexorable  nemesis  that 
follows :  the  futility  of  rebellion,  the  supremacy  of 
fate.  In  every  character,  a  nemesis  -  action  is 
worked  out,  final  and  severe.  Atalanta,  in  her 
perpetual  maidenhood,  denies  the  law  of  woman, 
and  brings  woe  upon  her  friends.  The  will  of  Me- 
leager, set  towards  her  in  opposition  to  the  gods, 
slays  his  uncles:  yet  these,  by  their  unbridled 
arrogance,  have  wrought  also  their  own  doom. 
All  the  characters,  by  action  and  by  passion,  cry 
out  upon  a  retribution  not  slow  to  visit  them. 


168  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

But  behind  all  these  minor  sins  lies  the  sombre 
doom  of  Althaea,  the  fated  woman  who  has  sought 
in  vain  to  thwart  the  gods,  and  who  by  their  ruth- 
less irony  is  driven  to  become  herself  her  instru- 
ment of  vengeance.  The  brand  is  thrown  upon 
the  fire,  the  life  of  the  hero  son  wastes  away, 
and  the  great  doom  is  accomplished.  The  calm 
faith  of  Atalanta,  the  sweet,  audacious  optimism 
of  Meleager,  springing  from  youth  in  the  blood, 
serve  but  as  foils  for  the  lurid,  smoke -darkened 
passion  with  which  the  Queen  recognizes  the  futil- 
ity of  struggle  and  the  necessity  of  fate.  The 
great  drama  sweeps  onward,  its  current  mightily 
swift  because  held  within  steepest  banks  of  dra- 
matic law,  and  the  choruses,  among  Swinburne's 
most  marvelous  lyrical  achievements,  give  the  atti- 
tude of  man  towards  nature,  human  life,  love, 
God,  and  fate  and  death.  It  is  an  attitude  of 
rebellion  against  the  most  high  gods,  silenced  by 
despair.  The  central  chorus,  chanted  at  the  mo- 
ment of  seeming  promise,  preserves,  in  grand  mel- 
odies that  enhance  its  terror,  Swinburne's  concep- 
tion of  the  final  word  of  man,  flung  upward  towards 
the  heavens :  — 

"  Thou  hast  sent  us  sleep,  and  smitten  sleep  with  dreams, 

Saying,  joy  is  not,  but  love  of  joy  shall  be  ; 
Thou  hast  made  sweet  springs  for  all  the  pleasant  streams, 

In  the  end  thou  hast  made  them  bitter  with  the  sea ; 
Thou  hast  fed  one  rose  with  dust  of  many  men, 

Thou  hast  marred  one  face  with  fire  of  many  tears ; 
Thou  hast  taken  love,  and  given  us  sorrow  again ; 

With  pain  thou  hast  filled  us  full  to  the  eyes  and  ears. 
Therefore,  because  thou  art  strong,  our  father,  and  we 

Feeble  ;  and  thou  art  against  us,  and  thine  hand 


NEO-PAGANISM  169 

Constrains  us  in  the  shallows  of  the  sea 
And  breaks  us  at  the  limits  of  the  land ; 

"  Because  thou  art  over  all  who  are  over  us, 

Because  thy  name  is  life  and  our  name  death  ; 
Because  thou  art  cruel  and  men  are  piteous, 

And  our  hands  labor  and  thine  hand  scattereth,  — 
Lo  with  hearts  rent  and  knees  made  tremulous, 

Lo  with  ephemeral  lips  and  casual  breath, 
At  least  we  witness  of  thee  ere  we  die 
That  these  things  are  not  otherwise,  but  thus  — 
That  each  man  in  his  heart  sigheth,  and  saith 

That  all  men,  even  as  I, 
All  we  are  against  thee,  against  thee,  0  God  most  high." 

Through  all  the  serene  beauty  of  the  drama,  the 
horror  of  pitiful  rebellion  and  pitiless  law  glim- 
mers and  flashes  like  the  fateful  firelight  down  the 
pillars  of  the  long  Greek  dwelling,  and  the  music 
sinks  away  at  last  with  low  wail  into  silence :  — 

"  Who  shall  contend  with  his  lords, 

Or  cross  them  or  do  them  wrong  ? 
Who  shall  bind  them  as  with  cords  ? 

Who  shall  tame  them  as  with  song  ? 
Who  shall  smite  them  as  with  swords  ? 

For  the  hands  of  their  kingdom  are  strong." 

Empedocles,  unconsoled  by  his  serene  philos- 
ophy of  the  attainable,  leaps  into  the 

r    J  £  The  Result. 

crater.    Althaea  passes  into  silence.     Me- 

leager  is  consumed  as  a  brand.     How  far  is  this 

sorrowful  message  genuinely  Greek? 

The  answer  would  carry  us  far,  —  perhaps  beyond 
the  knowledge  of  any  modern  man.  Yet  we  may 
surely  see  that  through  our  neo -pagan  art  there 
sounds  a  new  asperity,  and  upon  it  rests  a  new 


170  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

shadow.  The  blitheness  of  genuine  Hellenism  was 
instinctive,  not  defiant;  its  delight  in  the  natural 
life  was  untainted  by  any  sense  of  exile  from  a 
greater  glory.  The  reverence  of  the  Greek,  more- 
over, would  of  necessity  prevent  such  amazing  out- 
pour of  the  sense  of  wrong,  such  railing  against 
law  and  life  as  quivers  and  flames  through  the 
poetry  of  the  Atalanta.  Blasphemy  was  abhor- 
rent to  Greek  taste  as  to  Greek  faith,  and  the 
poetry  of  Greece  actually  possesses  that  high  calm 
of  which  our  neo-pagan  poetry  laments  the  ab- 
sence. 

Yet  our  poets  give  us,  perhaps,  logical  deduc- 
tion of  modern  thought  from  the  premises  of  the 
past.  The  profound  but  tranquil  sorrow  of  Ar- 
nold, the  tumultuous  rebellion  of  Swinburne,  must 
perhaps  in  the  modern  world  be  the  result  of  life 
shut  in  upon  itself  for  inspiration.  That  mingled  ' 
awe  and  hatred  of  Fate  which  Swinburne  expresses 
with  the  rush  of  overweening  eloquence,  the  old 
Greek  hinted  now  and  then  in  words  few,  abrupt, 
yet  deeply  significant.  A  profound  fatalism  is 
at  the  heart  of  Greek  tragedy,  that  most  burning 
flower  of  Hellenic  genius.  A  constant  reach  out- 
ward into  the  unknown,  constantly  checked  by  a 
recognition  of  its  hopelessness,  is  the  story  of 
Greek  philosophy.  That  which  was  latent  and 
half-unconscious  in  the  elder  world  has  become 
tragically  conscious,  openly  expressed,  in  our  own 
day ;  and  the  poet  who  seeks  most  thoroughly  to 
return  to  the  standards  and  visions  of  the  past, 
sees  most  clearly  its  vacuity  for  the  spirit. 


NEO-PAGANISM  171 

The  pagan  reversion,  as  expressed  in  our  poetry, 
began  in  joy;  but  it  has  ended  in  sorrow.  At 
first  imaginative  rather  than  ethical,  the  movement 
towards  Hellenism  was  charged  with  the  myth- 
making  impulse  of  the  youth  of  the  race,  instinc- 
tive, joyous,  and  buoyant.  As  time  goes  on,  it 
has  become  infused  with  a  graver  thought,  a  more 
conscious  purpose.  Its  votaries  turn  to  the  past 
from  reasoned  conviction,  seeking,  amid  the  ten- 
sion of  varying  emotions  and  conflicting  creeds, 
steadiness  and  strength  from  the  noble  teaching 
of  Greek  ethics.  As  the  moral  attitude  becomes 
accented,  external  beauty  is  less  emphasized,  so 
that  the  subdued  Hellenism  of  Arnold  is  of  a  quite 
different  type  from  the  delighted  and  unrestrained 
Hellenism  of  Keats.  Finally,  in  Swinburne,  pa- 
ganism becomes  not  only  conscious  but  defiant. 
The  passion  for  natural  beauty,  spontaneous  in 
Keats  as  the  breathing  of  a  sleeping  child,  be- 
comes in  the  later  poet  a  fierce  manifesto.  He 
renews  with  passionate  intention  the  Greek  impulse 
to  make  the  most  of  this  brief  span  of  sunlit  exist- 
ence. The  spirit  being  denied,  the  flesh  asserts 
its  mastery,  and  the  sensuousness  of  Keats,  which 
is  aesthetic,  becomes  the  sensuousness  of  Swin- 
burne, which  is  natural.  Moderation  and  self- 
restraint  are  still  preached  as  a  necessary  attitude ; 
but  the  law,  religiously  revered  by  Arnold  as  the 
ultimate  fact  of  the  universe,  becomes  to  Swin- 
burne a  bitter  fate,  to  be  obeyed  indeed,  but  also 
to  be  cursed. 

Whatever   may  be  true  of   the  civilization  of 


172  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

Greece,  our  modern  paganism  leads  to  pain.  The 
eternal  strife  between  flesh  and  spirit  it  seeks  to 
escape  by  repression  of  the  spirit,  and  the  strong 
mastery  of  the  flesh  subdues  it,  or  the  agony  of 
thwarted  prayer  and  love  unfulfilled  invades  its 
peace^Kest  in  the  serene  glory  of  the  past  is 
impossible  to  a  generation  that  has  beheld,  though 
in  vision  only,  a  greater  light.  ** 

3.    The  Mediaeval  Revival 

A 
On  the  side  of  a  small  Italian  mountain  clings 

still  a  little  town,  gray,  innocent,  and  ancient,  which 
The  Banish-  may  well  seem  the  centre  of  mediseval- 

ment  of  .  TT  .  .    .  . 

Eros.  ism.     Here  in  Assisi  was  the  birthplace 

of  St.  Francis,  purest  adept  in  the  art  of  living, 
as  conceived  by  the  thirteenth  century;  here,  in 
the  churches  built  above  his  tomb  and  %  covered 
with  frescoes  by  Cimabue  and  Giotto,  is  the  birth- 
place of  the  Christian  att  of  Italy.  The  som- 
bre lower  church,  symbol  of  the  -earthly  life  of 
the  saint,  conveys  at  first  only  a  sense  of  wide 
arches,  dark  and  %low,  opening  into  mystery  and 
silence.  Slowly  great  pictures  gather  themselves 
out  of  *the  gloom,  and  reveal  over  and  over,  ^in 
solemn  hint  and  symbol,  the  mysteries  of  the 
Catholic  faith.  Here  St.  Francis  weds  Poverty, 
a  dread  bride,  spirit-wan,  treading  among  thorns, 
yet  with  that  in  her  hollow  face  which  might  hold 
a  man  to  her  forever ;  while  lines  of  serious  angels, 
with  shimmering,  dove-like  wings,  stand  lovely 
and  worshipful,  witnesses  to  the  strange  bridal. 
Here  Obedience,  a  bowed  and  aged  figure,  pale 


THE  MEDIAEVAL  REVIVAL  173 

with  utter  patience  of  submission,  places  the  yoke 
over  the  head  of  a  monk.  Here  the  saint,  kneel- 
ing emaciated  in  the  wilderness,  stretches  his  arms 
towards  a  shining  Form  —  crucified,  yet  enfolded 
with  golden  wings  of  triumph  and  of  power  —  that 
bends  from  the  dark  sky,  and  gazes  on  him  with 
eyes  which  find  their  own  image  in  the  upturned 
eyes  below.  Again  and  again  on  these  walls  the 
Lord  is  crucified.  His  blessed  life  and  that  of 
His  follower  is  told  in  work  that,  through  all  stiff- 
ness and  childishness  of  technique,  reveals  might 
of  spiritual  imagination  unsurpassed.  If  from 
broken  temple  and  mutilated  statues  the  full  glory 
of  Greece  strikes  home  to  our  alien  hearts,  far 
more  perfectly  may  the  entire  ideal  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  be  reconstructed  from  the  walls  of  this 
church. 

At  one  side  of  Giotto's  great  fresco  of  Chastity, 
he  has  painted  for  us  the  Greek  Eros,  —  a  naked 
youth,  fair  of  body,  with  blindfold  eyes,  his  quiver 
by  his  side.  He  is  dowered  with  rosy  wings,  and 
every  line  is  full  of  the  grace  of  adolescence.  But 
his  lovely  limbs  end  in  yellow  talons,  sharp,  scaly, 
vulture-like.  He  flees  downward,  a  shrinking, 
exquisite  figure,  before  the  menacing  presence  of 
four  great  angels,  grave,  still,  and  pure,  who  hold 
towards  him  with  solemn  harmony  of  gesture  the 
cords  and  knives  of  penance.  On  their  faces  is 
stamped  conquest,  and  in  the  severe  folds  of  their 
long  garments,  as  in  their  noble,  drooping  wings 
and  on  their  mature  foreheads,  may  be  read  the 
new  word,  Kenunciation. 


174  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

Thus  the  Middle  Ages  banished  Eros  to  the 
abyss;  knowing  him  fair,  believing  him  evil  as 
blind.  In  our  own  world  there  are  many  in  like 
manner  to  banish  the  fair  genius  of  Greece. 
Neo-paganism  has  moved  towards  self-destruction. 
The  modern  spirit,  still  wandering  as  exile  through 
the  past,  has  sought  in  other  civilizations  than  the 
classic  a  more  enduring  home. 

The  mediaeval  revival  of  the  nineteenth  century 
is  yet  more  distinctive  than  the  pagan  reversion. 
The  eighteenth  century  had  known  at  least  a  spu- 
rious classical  revival,  but  the  Middle  Ages  were 
to  it  a  book  not  only  sealed  but  despised.  That 
which  was  barbarous  to  the  Augustan  age  is  sacred 
to  the  Victorian.  Beginning  even  before  our  own 
century  with  the  impulse  towards  romanticism 
that  culminated  in  Scott,  the  mediaeval  reaction 
deepened  into  spiritual  comprehension  in  the  eccle- 
siastical movement  of  the  thirties,  and  became 
vivid  with  aesthetic  and  emotional  sympathy  in  the 
pre-Raphaelite  movement  a  little  later.  Unlike 
neo-paganism,  the  influence  of  the  Middle  Ages 
has  been  more  operative  in  architecture  and  paint- 
ing than  in  poetry.  Its  full  power,  indeed,  is  less 
manifest  in  art  than  in  life ;  for  a  spirit  is  with  us, 
as  with  the  early  Franciscans,  which  drives  men 
forth  from  luxury  to  a  common  life  with  the  igno- 
rant and  the  despoiled.  Such  a  spirit,  absorbed 
in  the  deed,  has  as  yet  found  no  outcome  in  art. 
Yet,  though  our  mediaeval  reversion  be  rather 
direct  than  aesthetic,  many  modern  poems  owe 
inspiration,  technique,  or  subject  to  the  Middle 


THE  MEDIEVAL   REVIVAL  175 

Ages.  A  group  of  these  poems,  full  of  interest 
and  charm,  suggests  to  us  the  nineteenth  century 
as  at  once  critic  and  disciple  of  the  thirteenth. 

Two  controlling  factors  gave  the  medieval  ideal 
life  and  breath :  asceticism  and  chivalry.  The  two 
were  never  far  apart.  If  asceticism  finds  Asceticism, 

Chivalry, 

its  fullest  pictorial  expression  at  Assisi,   *«<*  their 

A  t         A  modern  In- 

many  an  early  Italian  picture  lends  form  terpreters. 
and  color  to  the  ideal  of  knighthood.  The  mailed 
archangels  of  Signorelli  stand  actual  among  sub- 
stantial clouds,  while  the  young  knights  of  Peru- 
gino  in  their  shining  armor  are  vainly  endued 
with  the  heroic  ancient  names  that  suit  so  ill  their 
pensive  Christian  courage.  The  knight  and  the 
ascetics,  types  equally  remote  from  the  pagan 
world,  attract  equally  the  modern  poets.  Chivalry 
is  first  in  the  field,  and  round  its  shining  pomp 
gathers  much  of  the  delight  of  the  early  romantic 
movement.  Knight,  not  ascetic,  quickened  the 
healthy  fancy  of  Scott;  and  the  wholesome  vigor 
of  his  delineations  proves  perpetual  happiness  for 
that  modern  knight,  as  Lanier  calls  him,  the  gen- 
uine boy.  Yet  Scott,  ignoring  the  mystical  ele- 
ment in  the  Middle  Ages,  could  not  enter  their 
true  spirit.  His  brilliant  work  springs  from  out- 
ward love  of  movement  and  picture  rather  than 
from  deep  affinity.  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth, 
in  "  Christabel"  and  "The  White  Doe  of  Ryl- 
stone,"  suggest  a  more  vital  insight. 

But  it  was  later  that  the  vague  romantic  move^ 
ment  was  to  shape  itself  into  a  genuine  mediaeval 


176  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

revival.  It  was  to  be  vivified  and  strengthened 
by  the  deep  sense  of  spiritual  wonder  inherent  in 
the  new  democracy ;  it  was  also  to  be  informed  by 
the  new  scholarship  with  its  gift  of  definite  know- 
ledge. Such  processes  take  time.  Only  in  the 
Victorian  age  has  the  romantic  spirit,  becoming 
critical  and  conscious,  turned  deliberately  to  a  re- 
vival of  mediaeval  methods  and  ideals. 

Clough  and  Arnold  ignore  medieval  themes. 
Browning  seldom  touches  them,  though  the  virile 
handling  of  "A  Heretic's  Tragedy"  shows  what 
power  might  have  been  his.  All  the  other  Victo- 
rians sooner  or  later,  in  degree  greater  or  less, 
kindle  their  imagination  at  mediaeval  altars. 

Landor  is  our  purest  exponent  of  neo-paganism, 
true  son  of  antiquity  strayed  into  the  modern 
world.  We  have  a  poet  who  holds  precisely  the 
same  place  in  the  mediaeval  revival.  Cardinal 
Newman  towers  with  only  three  or  four  compeers 
above  his  generation ;  and  now  that  the  benignity 
of  his  great  nature  has  passed  from  our  sight,  its 
majesty  is  more  evident  year  by  year.  But  New- 
man is  no  child  of  his  own  age,  though  he  was  one 
of  its  leaders.  He  belongs  to  the  Middle  Ages, 
not  by  his  imagination,  but  by  his  very  person- 
ality. If  Scott  is  all  chivalry,  Newman  is  all 
asceticism.  Pure  mystic  speaks  in  him,  the  mys- 
tic who  has  not  even  seen  the  warrior.  His  long- 
est poem,  the  "Dream  of  Gerontius,"  is  a  study 
of  the  experience  of  the  Catholic  soul  after  death. 
No  one  who  has  felt  the  keen  touch  of  that  poem 
upon  the  hidden  spirit  could  venture  to  call  it 


THE  MEDIAEVAL  REVIVAL  177 

archaic.  But  it  is  modern  only  because  eternal, 
as  the  Confessions  of  Augustine  are  modern.  Only 
by  accident  does  the  nineteenth  rather  than  the 
thirteenth  century  give  it  birth.  Cardinal  New- 
man is  in  one  sense  apart  even  from  the  medieval 
revival :  he  is  simply  a  true  son  of  the  past. 

One  of  our  minor  poets,  Charles  Kingsley,  did 
his  best  work  when  inspired  by  the  Middle  Ages. 
His  chief  poem,  "A  Saint's  Tragedy,"  is  a  lovely 
if  weak  study  of  mediaeval  life. 

But  it  is  with  the  pre-Raphaelite  poets,  Rossetti, 
Swinburne,  and  Morris,  that  we  find  an  important 
school,  consciously  dedicated  to  the  revival  of  the 
past.  "Studies  in  the  Art  Catholic"  the  fervid 
young  Gabriel  Rossetti  called  his  first  fugitive 
poems;  and  it  was  in  the  assumption  of  an  archaic 
and  Catholic  manner  that  the  group  of  painters 
and  later  of  poets  who  clustered  round  him  found 
their  distinctive  note.  The  atmosphere  in  which 
their  work  is  steeped  is  that  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, rather  than  the  smoky,  bracing  air  of  our 
own  day.  Their  translations  from  early  French 
and  Italian  are  needless  witnesses  to  their  enthu- 
siasm for  the  mediaeval  past. 

And  yet,  when  the  final  history  of  this  curious 
and  fascinating  movement  of  the  imagination 
comes  to  be  written,  it  will  perhaps  be  seen  that 
the  central  affinity  of  the  movement  in  its  matu- 
rity was  not  with  the  Middle  Ages;  the  epithet 
pre-Raphaelite  is  surely  a  misnomer  for  its  chief 
product.  Despite  their  ardent  start,  it  is  not  one 
of  these  poets  who  is  the  most  constant  exponent 


178  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

of   the  mediaeval  revival:    it  is  the  poet  of   the 
"Idylls  of  the  King." 

Very  early  in  the  poetic  life  of  Tennyson,  a 
series  of  brief,  delicate  poems  —  the  "  Lady  of  Sha- 
lott,"  "  Sir  Galahad,"  "  St.  Agnes'  Eve,"  "  St. 
Simeon  Stylites  "  —  showed  that  the  glamour  of  the 
Middle  Ages  was  upon  him.  His  early  classical 
studies  were,  as  we  have  seen,  few,  and  they  were 
never  followed.  Abandoning  them  for  a  mightier 
spell,  Tennyson  gave  himself  to  weaving  upon  an 
old  heroic  cycle  of  the  Middle  Ages  his  fairest 
imaginative  broidery.  The  cycle  of  the  "Idylls  of 
the  King,"  in  its  complete  form,  must  be  ranked 
as  the  chief  mediaeval  reversion  of  the  century. 
The  story  may  be  Keltic  and  the  handling  modern : 
we  may  for  our  own  private  pleasure  prefer  the 
rough,  insouciant,  tender  narrative  of  old  Sir 
Thomas  Malory;  but  the  ordinary  modern  English 
world  gets  from  the  pages  of  Tennyson  its  ideal 
of  knighthood.  Newman,  Kingsley,  Rossetti, 
Morris,  Swinburne,  are  all  of  them  in  greater  or 
less  degree  shaped  and  penetrated  by  the  influence 
of  the  Middle  Ages;  but  no  one  of  them  has  ren- 
dered its  ideals  vivid  and  intelligible  to  the  world 
so  successfully  and  fully  as  the  poet  of  Lancelot 
and  Guinevere,  of  Merlin  and  Elaine  and  Gala- 
had, and  of  King  Arthur. 

As  we  pass  from  our  neo -pagan  poetry  to  the 
Attraction  poetry  of  the  mediaeval  revival,  there  is 

and  Repul-  ,  ,  , .  »      1 

sion.  a  change  in  the  very  quality  01  the  air. 

Suave  quietude  has  fled,  and  a  rough  wind  strikes 


THE  MEDIAEVAL  REVIVAL  179 

our  cheeks.  With  CEnone,  beautiful -browed,  we 
have  lingered  on  the  mountain-forest,  and  have 
beheld  the  celestial  vision  where  the  crocus  broke 
like  flame  at  the  feet  of  Aphrodite,  and  the  pearly 
shoulder  of  Pallas  gleams  against  the  pines.  We 
pass  to  the  pillar  where  a  hideous  old  man  stricken 
with  sore  disease, 

"  In  coughs,  aches,  stitches,  ulcerous  throes  and  cramps," 

cries  aloud  out  of  his  morbid  craze.  From  hillside 
and  ocean-shore,  haunted  by  fair  forms  roaming 
in  sweet  freedom  and  naked  glory,  we  are  trans- 
ported to  the  cloister  and  the  pallet,  the  harsh 
robe  and  the  dying  prayer.  Even  in  the  later 
phases  of  neo-paganism,  where  pain  and  question 
have  invaded  the  instinctive  joy  in  natural  good, 
and  possess  the  secret  life,  all  outward  forms  are 
still  haughty  in  beauty  and  move  with  untroubled 
calm.  Empedocles  in  his  melancholy,  Althaea  in 
her  passion,  are  fair  and  stately  still.  In  the 
poetry  of  the  mediaeval  revival,  loveliness,  even 
when  admitted,  is  fraught  with  unrest  and  pain. 
Scarred  with  the  knight,  or  emaciated  with  the 
monk,  we  fight  or  we  aspire.  Place  beside  Lan- 
dor's  "Hellenics"  the  "Dream  of  Gerontius;" 
beside  "Hyperion  "  Kingsley's  "Saint's  Tragedy;  " 
beside  Tennyson's  "  OEnone,"  his  "  St.  Agnes' 
Eve."  Here  still  is  beauty,  but  beauty  of  a  new 
order.  Cardinal  Newman  has  a  tender  story  of 
a  young  Greek  girl,  converted  from  her  pagan 
calm,  her  self-sufficing  loveliness,  and  dying  the 
death  of  a  Christian  martyr.  Her  confessor  notes 
the  change  in  her  appearance :  "He  could  hardly 


180  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

keep  from  tears  of  pain  or  of  joy  or  of  both  when 
he  saw  the  great  change  which  trial  had  wrought 
in  her.  What  touched  him  most  was  the  utter 
disappearance  of  that  majesty  of  mien  which  once 
was  hers,  a  gift  so  beautiful,  so  unsuitable  to  fallen 
man.  There  was  instead  of  it  a  frank  humility, 
a  simplicity  without  concealment,  an  unresisting- 
meekness  which  seemed  as  if  it  would  enable  her, 
if  trampled  on,  to  smile,  and  to  kiss  the  feet  that 
insulted  her.  She  had  lost  every  vestige  of  what 
the  world  worships  under  the  title  of  proper  pride 
and  self-respect.  Callista  was  now  living,  not  in 
the  thought  of  herself,  but  of  Another."  In  like 
manner  our  modern  poets  find  impossible  sustained 
loyalty  to  the  Greek  ideal.  Against  their  will 
romanticism  invades  them,  and  whispers  of  imper- 
fection, humility,  and  desire.  Beside  a  saint,  even 
a  goddess  is  insipid.  Tennyson  and  Keats,  despite 
their  frank  passion  for  natural  beauty,  lapse  per- 
petually into  fullness  of  color  and  subtlety  of  style. 
Even  Arnold  and  Swinburne  unconsciously  adopt 
the  mystical  and  suggestive,  and  adumbrate  in 
their  very  epithets  a  halo  of  unspoken  meanings. 
The  unfulfilled  allures  us,  and  the  spell  of  Chris- 
tian civilization  is  too  strong  for  the  modern  man. 
For  the  word  of  Hellas  was  sanity,  but  the  word 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  faith ;  and  the  world  of 
to-day,  though  it  seek  satisfaction  in  the  first 
word,  is  forever  haunted  by  the  second.  When 
our  poets  yield  fully  to  the  spell  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  beauty  which  floats  before  their  sight 
is  that  of  a  nun  on  the  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  spirit- 


THE  MEDIEVAL  REVIVAL  181 

pure,  her  frail  flesh  worn  till  almost  translucent 
like  the  moonlit  snowdrop  upon  her  breast.  Kings - 
ley,  in  a  tiny  poem  which  is  an  illumination  in 
itself,  tells  us  the  place  of  the  fair  natural  world 
in  the  medieval  ideal :  — 

"  I  would  have  loved :  there  are  no  mates  in  heaven ; 
I  would  be  great :  there  is  no  pride  in  heaven ; 
I  would  have  sung  as  doth  the  nightingale, 
The  summer's  night  beneath  the  moone  pale, 
But  saintes'  hymns  alone  in  heaven  prevail. 
My  love,  my  song,  my  skill,  my  high  intent, 
Have  I  within  this  seely  book  y-pent ; 
And  all  that  beauty  which  from  every  part 
I  treasured  still  alway  within  my  heart  — 
Whether  of  form  or  face  angelical, 
Or  herb  or  flower  or  lofty  cathedral  — 
Upon  these  sheets  below  doth  lie  y-spread 
In  quaint  devices  deftly  blazoned. 
Lord,  in  this  tome  to  Thee  I  sanctify 
The  simple  fruits  of  worldly  fantasy." 

One  might  suppose  that  in  an  age  which  cannot 
quite  escape  faith,  poetry  inspired  by  Christian 
ages  would  be  stronger  than  that  shaped  by  the 
classic  world.  It  is  not  so.  Neo-paganism  may 
end  in  death,  but  the  poetry  of  the  mediaeval  re- 
action begins  and  ends  in  weakness;  it  is  slight 
in  substance  and  feeble  in  fibre.  Our  neo-pagan 
poetry  is  a  small  literature  in  itself;  this  is  an 
occasional  side-issue.  Keats  is  pure  Hellene  and 
Swinburne  has  never  surpassed  "Atalanta,"  but 
no  poet  except  Newman  is  medieval  at  his  height. 
Our  mediaeval  poetry  is  no  expression  of  an  inner 
life ;  it  is  a  series  of  studies  in  a  remote  though 
interesting  time.  We  cannot  conceal  from  our- 


182  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

selves  in  the  Idylls  that  these  knights  are  no  real 
heroes  of  a  real  age  of  chivalry,  careless,  religious, 
brutal,  and  gay,  but  the  Moral  Virtues  and  Vices 
parading  around  the  Prince  Consort.  Rossetti  is 
masquerading  in  the  garb  of  Dante:  his  exquisite 
creations  are  nothing  but  feelings,  dressed  in 
dream-raiment  cut  after  the  fashion  of  the  past. 
Of  wholesome,  sincere,  unlabored  renderings  of 
mediaeval  life,  our  modern  English  poets  can  show 
not  one. 

We  said  that  in  our  poetic  mediaeval  revival  we 
could  watch  the  nineteenth  century  as  at  once  dis- 
ciple and  critic  of  the  thirteenth.  If  this  be  so,  the 
critic  gets  the  better  of  the  disciple.  Our  English 
poets  condemn  the  mediaeval  ideal  even  while  they 
depict  it.  And,  Arnold  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing, poetry  which  is  criticism  can  never  be 
whole-souled. 

The  neo  -  pagan  poet  is  in  full  though  not  al- 
ways in  joyous  sympathy  with  his  subject;  he 
yields  himself  to  the  ideal  that  he  describes.  The 
mediaeval  poet  never  surrenders.  "Empedocles" 
expresses  the  real  belief  of  Arnold;  "St.  Simeon 
Stylites"  is  a  study  in  self-delusion.  "Endym- 
ion"  is  the  loving  image  of  a  bright  world  fled; 
the  "Saint's  Tragedy "  is  an  avowed  criticism  of 
the  monastic  ideal  of  womanhood.  The  Middle 
Ages  allure  our  poets  away  with  mighty  charm 
from  the  spell  of  Greece :  at  the  same  time  they 
repel  the  imagination  and  drive  it  to  a  hostile 
attitude. 

The  severe  "ascesis"  of  the  Greeks  was  to  the 


THE  MEDIAEVAL  REVIVAL  183 

end  of  a  natural  perfection :  the  asceticism  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  more  painful  and  more  complete, 
was  to  the  end  of  an  unearthly  holiness.  To  such 
asceticism,  no  child  of  the  new  age  who  is  also  a 
x  child  of  art  can  ever  yield. 

-/"*  *  The  early  poems  of  Rossetti  are  the  only  modern 
/  work  fully  merged  in  a  mediaeval  theme.  And 
Rossetti  preserves  sympathy  by  ignoring  fact. 
The  chivalry,  in  his  best  poems,  as  "Staff  and 
Scrip,"  is  indeed  suffused  with  mysticism.  Pas- 
sionate in  feeling,  devout  in  symbol,  these  poems 
inhabit  a  dim  region  in  our  imagination  otherwise 
desolate;  and  they  seem  to  bear  reproachful  wit- 
ness that  their  author  is  as  true  son  of  the  Middle 
Age  as  Newman  himself.  Yet  a  sense  of  hidden 
want  pursues  us  still.  For  we  miss  the  note  of 
renunciation.  As  Scott  uses  chivalry  for  pictorial 
material,  Rossetti  uses  mysticism  for  emotional 
stimulus.  Of  the  severe  repudiation  of  the  flesh, 
essential  and  inherent  in  the  mediaeval  ideal,  his 
poetry  bears  no  trace.  Mysticism  without  asceti- 
cism is  the  strange  quest  of  his  art ;  and  the  result, 
with  all  its  beauty,  is  historically  untrue. 

Of  our  two  best  exponents  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  one,  Rossetti,  thus  retains  sympathy  by  ignor- 
ing fact.  The  other,  Tennyson,  retains  truth  but 
forfeits  sympathy.  In  Tennyson's  mediaeval  stud- 
ies, the  two  factors,  asceticism  and  chivalry,  find 
full  recognition.  He  is  capable  of  giving  us  both 
a  Geraint  and  a  St.  Simeon,  and  in  many  of  his 
characters  the  two  elements  blend.  The  "Holy 
Grail,"  the  "Cup  of  Blessing,"  floats  on  the  wings 


184  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

of  spirit-music  over  all  the  jousts  and  battles  of  the 
"Idylls  of  the  King."  Sir  Galahad,  young  son  of 
Lancelot,  at  once  ascetic,  knight,  and  seer,  is  the 
militant  guardian  of  the  most  intense  faith  of  his 
time ;  and  as  he  rides  singing  over  wold  and  hill, 
his  lay  holds  reflected  the  sphere  of  mediaeval 
light:  — 

"  A  maiden-knight,  to  me  is  given 

Such  hope  I  know  not  fear ; 
I  yearn  to  meet  the  airs  of  heaven 
Which  often  greet  me  here. 

"  So  pass  I  hostel,  hall,  and  grange  ; 

By  bridge  and  ford,  by  park  and  pale, 
All  armed  I  ride,  whate'er  betide, 
Until  I  find  the  Holy  Grail." 

Tennyson  understands  his  age,  but  he  under- 
stands it  only  to  condemn.  Criticism  on  the  mystic 
claim  which  draws  men  from  the  world  of  fact  to 
the  world  of  vision  points  the  moral  and  spoils  the 
art  of  the  "Idylls  of  the  King."  The  summons 
of  the  Holy  Grail  disintegrates  the  Table  Round 
and  destroys  the  noble  plan  of  Arthur.  Our  best 
poetic  interpreter  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  also  their 
keenest  critic. 

The  classic  ideal,  seeking  a  natural  perfection, 
put  on  one  side  all  that  conflicted  with  its  har- 
mony. The  mediaeval,  seeking  a  spiritual  promise, 
aspired  through  the  denial  of  the  flesh.  Many  a 
poet  and  thinker,  wearied  with  eternal  strife,  has 
flung  himself,  with  the  cumulative  force  of  natural 
instinct  and  developed  will,  full  on  the  pagan 
ideal  :  no  poet  or  thinker  touched  to  modernness 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE     185 

can  with  entire  abandon  return  to  the  mediaeval. 
Too  strong  is  our  realism,  our  faith  in  the  world 
of  actual,  visible  nature  and  men.  We  may  deny 
the  spirit  if  we  will,  but  it  is  only  in  sporadic  and 
uncharacteristic  moments  that  the  age  of  science 
can  deny  the  senses.  The  harmonious  synthesis 
between  flesh  and  spirit  is  not  reached,  either  by 
the  votaries  of  paganism  or  by  the  students  of 
mediae valism :  was  there  no  other  way? 

4.  The  Spirit  of  the  Renaissance 
The  fifteenth  century  saw  a  classical  reaction 
as  marked  as  our  own,  though  less  scholarly  and 
less  profound;  and  the  "Faerie  Queene "  alone 
would  witness  to  the  power  of  the  traditions  of 
chivalry  in  the  Middle  Ages.  But  there  is  one 
reversion  to  the  past  in  which  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury is  unique:  it  is  the  reversion  to  the  first 
renaissance. 

There  is  no  other  revival,  in  the  Victorian  age, 
so  full  of  vigorous  enjoyment.  In  the  time  of  the 
revolutionary  poets,  indeed,  Keats's  "Eve  of  St. 
Agnes  "  stands  alone  as  a  glowing  example  of  the 
renaissance  spirit.  But  in  our  more  complex  and 
conscious  time,  this  most  complex  of  the  civiliza- 
tions of  the  past  has  drawn  our  poets  to  itself  with 
mighty  power.  A  great  body  of  our  poetry  deals 
directly  with  themes  of  the  Italian  renaissance ;  a 
still  greater  body  receives  inspiration  and  coloring 
from  the  same  period.  Arnold  and  Clough  alone 
leave  it  untouched.  Tennyson  in  one  fine  and 
unique  poem,  "The  Palace  of  Art,"  sums  up  its 


186  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

essence.  The  poem  is  an  excursion  in  his  work. 
But  Rossetti  when  not  mediaeval,  Swinburne  when 
not  pagan,  are  far  more  truly  sons  of  the  Ital- 
ian renaissance  than  of  the  England  of  factories 
and  steam.  Rossetti,  when  the  Catholic  fervor 
of  youth  is  over,  moves  forward  in  sympathy  and 
method  from  the  century  of  St.  Francis  to  the 
century  of  Leonardo.  Swinburne  opens  his  work 
with  the  "Laus  Veneris,"  and  the  painful  and 
powerful  rendering  of  the  great  legend  of  the 
renaissance  gives  the  key  to  his  central  temper; 
while  for  type  of  beauty  and  sentiment,  Morris, 
whatever  his  subject  may  be,  turns  to  the  same 
age.  The  revival  of  the  renaissance  in  these  poets 
may  be  likened  to  the  strong  enthusiasm  for  chiv- 
alry and  feudalism  in  Ariosto,  Tasso,  and  Spenser, 
—  at  once  a  continuous  afterglow  from  the  period 
itself  and  the  light  of  a  new  kindred  dawn.  Near 
enough  for  genuine  fellowship  in  sentiment,  they 
are  far  enough  for  the  charm  and  glamour  of  ro- 
mance. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  echo -poets,  as  we  might 
call  them,  who  have  passed  under  the  spell  of  this 
great  age.  One  poet  of  sympathies  massive  and 
large  is,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  unerring  in  his 
interpretation  of  the  time.  As  Arnold  and  Swin- 
burne show  an  instinct  especially  pagan,  as  Ten- 
nyson is  the  fullest  interpreter  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  so  Browning  is  peculiarly  the  poet  of  the 
Italian  renaissance.  Ruskin's  familiar  praise  of 
"The  Bishop  at  St.  Praxed's"  might  be  extended 
to  all  the  poems  of  this  period,  so  vital,  so  passion- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE     187 

ate,  so  learned,  so  spontaneous.  From  the  first 
dawn  of  the  new  feeling  as  signaled  in  "Old  Mas- 
ters in  Florence,"  through  its  glorious  noon  reflected 
in  "Fra  Lippo  Lippi,"  "The  Grammarian's  Fu- 
neral," and  countless  brilliant  poems,  to  the  last 
faint  scholastic  twilight  as  caught  by  the  Lawyers 
in  "The  Ring  and  The  Book,"  Browning  has  led 
us  through  the  changes  of  the  long  renaissance 
day. 

As  Giotto  painted  the  Middle  Ages  at  Assisi, 
so  Raphael  painted  the  Renaissance  on  the  walls 
of  the  Papal  palace  at  Rome.  In  these  jESthetic 
gracious  frescoes,  Art  and  Learning  are  Naturallsm- 
glorified.  Here  debonair  muses  cluster  around  the 
lightsome  youthful  Apollo,  while  the  poets  gather 
near  in  grand  delight.  Here  on  an  adjoining  wall, 
philosophers  and  students,  old  and  young  together, 
manifest  the  happy  harmony  of  thought. 

The  first  renaissance,  startled  from  its  heaven- 
gazing,  looked  around  upon  the  earth,  and  behold! 
it  was  very  good.  It  glowed  with  beauty,  won- 
derful, rich,  and  new,  with  knowledge  and  the  joy 
thereof.  "How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  liv- 
ing," became  the  cry  of  the  age,  a  cry  modulated 
to  varying  cadence  in  buildings,  pictures,  and 
poems.  It  is  not  hard  to  see  why  the  renaissance 
should  have  strong  fascination  for  the  poets  of  our 
own  day.  Times  of  rapid  and  vast  development 
of  material  luxury  and  scientific  enthusiasm,  their 
formative  conditions  are  the  same.  In  the  roam- 
ing impulse  of  the  spirit,  in  the  insatiable  desire 


188  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

for  all  knowledge  and  all  beauty,  in  the  intoxi- 
cating sense  of  new  freedom,  the  two  ages  are 
akin. 

To-day  again  the  spirit  of  reaction  is  abroad; 
hardly  reaction  against  the  past,  since  no  ages  of 
faith  lie  directly  behind  us,  but  against  phases 
of  thought  contemporary  and  vital.  For  we,  the 
summary  of  time,  hold  simultaneously  in  our  one 
great  moment  all  which  preceding  ages,  "piece- 
meal or  in  succession,"  have  revealed.  If  an  in- 
stinctive paganism  is  among  us,  we  have  also  a  fer- 
vent Christianity,  which  finds  faint  and  imperfect 
expression  in  the  mediaeval  revival  of  art.  There 
is  an  impulse,  define  it  how  we  will,  driving  its 
votaries  from  the  fine  and  subtle  luxury  of  inward 
culture  and  outward  beauty  to  a  region  of  sympa- 
thies where  the  fair  sorrows  of  the  imagination 
can  never  enter,  because  the  sorrow  of  actual 
physical  want  has  the  right  of  way.  Against  this 
impulse  of  renunciation,  semi -democratic  and  semi- 
Christian,  the  children  of  our  new  renaissance 
ardently  rebel.  Renunciation  is  abhorrent  to 
them,  and  the  enrichment  of  life  is  their  cry.  In 
the  fullness  of  art,  they  seek  the  fullness  of  joy, 
that  in  our  fleeting  years  we  may  catch  so  much 
as  may  be  of  the  world's  best  gifts.  It  is  this 
superb  reaching-out  for  the  glory  of  life  that  quiv- 
ers from  the  first  renaissance  to  our  own,  as  a 
sympathetic  chord  vibrates  through  space.  Brown- 
ing catches  the  vibration  for  us  with  splendid 
clearness  and  harmony  in  the  Credo,  defiant  and 
buoyant,  of  his  artist-monk :  — 


l  STIVERS 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE     189 

"  You  Ve  seen  the  world,  — 
The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 
The  shapes  of  things,  their  colors,  lights  and  shades, 
Changes,  surprises,  —  and  God  made  it  all  ! 
For  what  ?     Do  you  feel  thankful,  ay  or  no  ? 

.  .  .     This  world  's  no  blot  to  us, 
Nor  blank  —  it  means  intensely,  and  means  good  ; 
To  find  its  meaning  is  my  meat  and  drink."  l 

To  find  the  full  meaning  of  the  world  by  the  evo- 
lution of  the  fullest  consciousness,  to  enrich  and 
quicken  our  few  and  languid  years  by  the  beauty 
of  the  present  and  all  the  varied  gains  of  the  fair 
past,  —  such  is  the  aim  of  the  renaissance  of  our 
latter  days,  as  it  was  the  aim,  less  conscious,  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  Inaugurated  by  Goethe, 
the  impulse  has  become  more  inclusive  than  ever 
before,  since  informed  by  more  varied  knowledge 
and  drawing  upon  a  broader  past.  It  breathes 
through  all  the  poetic  movement  of  reversion  which 
we  are  studying,  and  finds  not  only  expression  but 
sanction  in  the  theory  which  makes  living  in  itself 
the  end  of  life,  and  demands  as  highest  good  vari- 
ety and  condensation  of  sensation.  "Not  the  fruit 
of  experience,  but  experience  itself  is  the  end," 
writes  an  apostle  of  the  new  renaissance.  "A 
counted  number  of  pulses  only  is  given  to  us  of  a 
variegated,  dramatic  life.  How  may  we  see  in 
them  all  that  is  to  be  seen  by  the  finest  senses? 
How  shall  we  pass  most  swiftly  from  point  to 
point,  and  be  present  always  at  the  focus  where 
the  greatest  number  of  vital  forces  unite  in  their 
purest  energy?  "To  burn  always  with  this  hard, 
1  Fra  Lippo  LippL 


190  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

gem-like  flame,  to  maintain  this  ecstasy,  is  success 
in  life." 

Thus  the  sestheticism  which  was  the  uncon- 
scious inspiration  of  the  splendor  of  the  first  re- 
naissance has  become  in  large  measure  the  con- 
scious formative  principle  of  our  own. 

The  peculiar  and  distinctive  character  of  the 
first  renaissance  arose  rather  from  the  fusion  than 
^stheticism  from  the  creation  of  ideas.  It  beheld  no 

and  Dis-  111  ••  T-II 

satisfaction,  absolutely  new  vision,  as  did  the  early 
Christians;  its  superb  originality  resulted  from  its 
dynamic  union  of  the  visions  of  ages  past.  Subtle 
and  audacious  in  thought,  it  saw  as  through  reced- 
ing transparencies  the  ideals  of  successive  times 
blended  in  one  confused  yet  glorious  whole.  The 
passion  for  life  drew  men  then  as  now  to  that 
civilization  in  which  the  art  of  living  reached 
highest  perfection,  and  the  eager  rediscovery  of 
the  ancient  world  was  cause  as  well  as  effect  of 
the  strong  movement  towards  naturalism.  But 
classical  studies  of  the  age,  unlike  our  own,  form 
no  separate  phase  of  art.  They  mingle  in  delight- 
ful simplicity  with  the  genuine  and  direct  expres- 
sions of  the  life  of  the  times,  and  with  the  varying 
forms  of  that  great  Christian  art  which  continues 
after  all  to  be  produced  in  unbroken  tradition. 
The  serene  beauty  of  the  Madonna  still  held  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  Biblical  pictures  in  their  solemn 
Hebraic  gloom  still  haunted  the  mental  vision. 
Full  return  to  pagan  ideals  was  impossible;  nor 
did  the  men  of  the  renaissance  wish  for  it.  The 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE     191 

celestial  visions  of  Christianity  were  too  closely 
interwoven  with  their  lives.  Thus  it  happened 
that  Artemis,  Aphrodite,  and  Apollo  arose  from 
their  long  sleep,  and  with  strange,  white,  surprised 
beauty  found  themselves  confronting  a  crucifix  or 
a  martyrdom.  The  grave  yet  joyous  harmony  of 
Raphael's  "Parnassus"  and  "School  of  Athens" 
are  in  no  wise  incommoded  by  the  "Triumph  of 
the  Christian  Faith,"  facing  them  upon  the  oppo- 
site wall.  Perugino,  master  of  Raphael,  lived  at 
the  exact  point  where  the  light  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  that  of  the  early  renaissance  blend. 
He  covered  the  chamber  where  met  the  fortunate 
merchants  of  Perugia  with  high  thoughts  and 
noble  forms.  Placing  at  one  end  the  Transfigura- 
tion as  the  triumph  of  faith  and  the  Nativity  as 
the  triumph  of  love,  he  ranged  the  heroes  of  an- 
tiquity in  the  guise  of  Christian  knights  along  the 
sides  of  the  splendid  room,  and  innocently  adorned 
the  ceiling  with  the  slim  juvenile  grace  of  Diana, 
Mercury,  and  Venus. 

And  after  all  it  is  this  wide  eclecticism,  frank 
and  free,  that  has  fullest  parallel  in  our  own  day. 
But  the  eager  temper  could  not  long  remain  joyous 
and  serene. 

The  renaissance  gladly  welcomed  what  elements 
of  beauty  it  found  existing  in  the  Christian  legend 
or  the  Christian  ideal.  There  were  other  elements 
in  Christianity  abhorrent  to  it.  Pain  of  body  and 
soul,  the  agonized  struggle  for  righteousness,  the 
sternness  of  the  moral  law,  —  all  this  it  strove  to 
escape,  but  the  effort  was  in  vain.  Against  this 


192  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

dark  background  shone  the  loveliness  of  the  saints ; 
remove  it,  and  their  shining  forms  vanished  into 
dim  monotony.  To  the  serene  pagan  exclusion  of 
all  that  was  dark  and  bitter,  the  renaissance  could 
not  return.  It  inherited  ages  of  teaching  alien  in 
deepest  spirit  to  the  temperate  joy  in  natural  good. 
Centuries  of  sorrow  lay  behind  it ;  sorrow,  tempered 
with  keen  yearning  after  a  supernatural  ideal,  shot 
through  with  strange  gladness,  consecrated  to  a 
lofty  service.  Men  might  aim  at  the  representa- 
tion of  a  heathen  image;  but  through  the  wan 
faces  of  their  goddesses  there  gleamed  the  pain  of 
an  infinite  desire,  and  the  full,  lovely  curves  of 
limb  in  the  Greek  statues  were  replaced  by  the 
emaciated  grace  of  an  ascetic  ideal.  They  might 
try  to  tell  a  classic  story ;  but  their  efforts  resulted 
in  the  weird  sadness  of  a  Tannhaiiser-legend,  sym- 
bol of  the  renaissance  itself,  enticed  from  the  light 
of  day  to  the  cave  of  Lady  Venus,  enthralled  yet 
haunted  by  dim  memories  ending  in  eternal  re- 
morse. Nowhere  in  the  deeper  art  of  the  renais- 
sance do  we  find  absolute  contentment  or  absolute 
beauty.  Into  all  happiness  is  breathed  the  note 
of  plaintive  desire:  on  all  the  beauty  there  rests 
the  cloud  of  yearning  sorrow.  Equally  remote 
from  the  temperance  of  the  Greek  and  the  asceticism 
of  the  monk,  its  art  is  characterized  by  the  enthu- 
siastic reproduction  of  all  that  it  can  perceive.  It 
strove  to  unite  the  ideals  of  Greece  and  of  Chris- 
tendom; and  despite  itself,  its  highest  ideal  of 
beauty  shone  with  the  melancholy  lustre  of  pain. 
And  here  most  perfectly  the  first  renaissance  is 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE      193 

prototype  of  our  own.  The  school  that  steeps 
itself  most  consciously  in  the  renaissance  utilizes 
sorrow  as  a  painter  utilizes  gloom.  With  faces 
passion-charged  and  mystery-clouded,  its  women 
belong  to  the  world  of  Botticelli,  where  a  grave 
secret  dims  all  the  gayety  and  grace  of  youth. 
Eossetti's  ballads,  with  their  exquisite  elaboration 
of  feeling  and  their  treatment  of  sin  itself  as  a 
supreme  aesthetic  motif,  are  of  the  fifteenth-cen- 
tury spirit.  Even  the  fleshly  passion  of  Swin- 
burne, when  not  controlled  by  conscious  Hellen- 
ism, is  charged  with  a  wavering  intensity  and 
eternal  yearning  foreign  to  the  classic  ideal.  It 
is  the  presence  of  sorrow,  of  sin,  of  coming  death, 
—  a  presence  seldom  deliberately  recognized  but 
never  evaded,  —  which  gives  to  all  this  school  of 
poets  distinctive  character  and  peculiar  charm. 
In  their  possession  there  is  still  a  further  reach  of 
longing.  The  shadow  of  the  first  renaissance,  a 
Venetian  shadow,  full  of  color  deep  and  sad,  falls 
upon  them.  Into  the  light  of  modern  day  they 
never  enter,  but  rest  within  the  shadow,  which 
tones  all  images  to  its  own  lovely  but  unnatural 
hue. 

The  note  of  sadness  which  sounds  through  the 
poetry  of  the  aesthetic  school  is  lost  to  us  as  we 
listen  to  the  ringing  music  of  Browning;  but  it 
is  replaced  by  the  note  of  criticism.  No  poet  has 
given  so  vivid  and  robust  studies  in  the  great 
period  as  the  revealer  of  Andrea  del  Sarto :  none 
has  been  so  wholesomely  drawn  by  its  humanist 
ardor,  its  passion  for  knowledge,  beauty,  and  love. 


194  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

Certain  aspects  of  the  time,  as  its  love  of  learning, 
Browning  alone  has  rendered ;  and  in  all  his  renais- 
sance poems,  it  is  the  eclecticism  and  the  aspira- 
tion of  the  -  age  together  on  which  he  loves  to 
dwell.  Yet,  well  though  he  loves  the  renaissance, 
he  is  never  subjugated  by  it.  His  brilliant  studies 
leave  us  aware  that  he  is  held  within  the  protec- 
tion of  a  wider  faith.  His  Duke  and  Bishop,  dil- 
ettante still,  the  one  before  the  image  of  his  dead 
wife,  the  other  on  his  deathbed,  are  touched  with 
keenest  satiric  humor ;  and  the  poet  from  first  to 
last  is  severe  judge  as  well  as  genial  revealer. 

From  Morris  to  Browning:  the  very  variety  of 
temperaments  which  have  felt  the  spell  witnesses  to 
the  spiritual  affinity  of  the  renaissance  and  our- 
selves. But  it  is  Tennyson  who  in  one  iridescent 
poem,  "The  Palace  of  Art,"  gives  us  the  quintes- 
sence of  the  aesthetic  ideal.  The  poem  is  a  sum- 
mary of  all  that  the  first  renaissance  uttered,  of 
all  that  our  narrower  movement  has  sought  to 
say.  The  glorious  soul  surrounds  herself  with  all 
material  delights  of  the  senses,  with  all  stimulus 
from  nature  and  from  art.  Literature,  history, 
philosophy,  enlighten  her;  every  religion,  Chris- 
tian, Mohammedan,  Roman  and  Greek  and  Ori- 
ental, lend  their  fair  mythology  to  bring  her  joy. 

"  Holding1  no  form  of  creed, 
But  contemplating  all," 

theology  itself  ministered  to  her  self-satisfaction, 
Tennyson  tells  us.  Even  so  fell  the  first  renais- 
sance. But  of  the  renaissance  of  these  later  days, 
the  end  is  not  yet  shown. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE     195 

For  the  renaissance,  Eros  no  longer  fled  trem- 
bling and  talon  -  footed  before  the  face  The  Mar 
of  God's  grave  angels.     In  the  frescoes  p£gan°dCu" 
of  Eaphael,  he  "holds  his  dear  Psyche  Psyche- 
sweet  entranced,"  and  natural  love  and  spiritual 
impulse  are  for  one  brief  moment  wed. 

But  for  one  brief  moment  only.  The  glory  of 
the  renaissance  did  not  endure.  In  its  union  of 
varying  elements  there  was  no  coherence  of  inward 
life.  It  dwindled  into  formalism,  and  passed  away 
in  the  external  glitter  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Its  quest  was  indeed  the  union  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche,  the  synthesis  of  flesh  and  soul.  It  clung 
with  defiance  to  the  flesh;  it  was  held  with  in- 
visible bonds  to  the  spirit.  Its  art  had  neither 
that  surrender  of  beauty  which  marks  the  extreme 
phases  of  the  Middle  Ages,  nor  the  serene  ignor- 
ing of  the  incomplete  which  marks  the  Greek.  It 
sought  to  harmonize  the  glory  of  the  natural  life 
with  the  yearning  for  a  spiritual  ideal. 

Half  conscious  in  the  earlier  renaissance,  this 
union  has  become  the  deliberate  craving  and  search 
of  many  of  our  later  poets.  Scientific  and  realistic, 
we  are  yet  mystical;  wedded  to  material  luxury, 
we  demand  and  seek  in  wild  experiments  to  press 
out  into  transcendental  life.  Imbued  like  the  re- 
naissance with  the  passion  of  humanism,  we,  too, 
raise  from  the  dead  ideals  long  wrapt  in  deathlike 
sleep.  Unable  to  reject  the  flesh,  unable  to  ignore 
the  spirit,  we,  too,  fling  our  power  into  an  attempt 
at  synthesis.  The  quest  of  the  ages  has  never 
been  more  intensely  conscious  than  with  us. 


196  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

The  first  renaissance  failed.  Nor  can  our  mod- 
ern renaissance  long  hold  us.  There  is  conflict 
and  not  peace  between  the  two  ideals  forced  into 
violent  and  reluctant  fellowship:  the  women  of 
Eossetti  are  too  full-lipped  for  the  saint,  too  deep- 
eyed  for  Aphrodite,  and  the  man  who  interprets 
the  first  renaissance  most  clearly  is  its  severest 
judge.  The  mighty  effort  at  synthesis  is  not  likely 
to  cease  with  our  generation;  but  the  word  of 
union,  in  the  art  that  seeks  to  return  to  the  fif- 
teenth century,  is  not  yet  found. 

5.   The  Outcome 

We  reach  the  question  towards  which  all  our 
studies  have  been  moving,  Can  the  home  of  a  mod- 
ern spirit  be  found  in  return  to  the  past? 

It  has  been  earnestly  sought  there.  From  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  though  more  strongly  in 
the  Victorian  age,  a  mighty  impulse  has  swept  our 
poets  away  from  the  turmoil  and  sordidness  of  the 
present  towards  some  ideal  past  civilization  which 
"still  lives,"  as  Blake  tells  us  that  all  things  live 
"in  the  human  imagination."  A  mighty  impulse 
has  swept  them  to  the  past :  a  mightier  impulse  has 
borne  them  back  again  into  uncompromising  mod- 
ernness,  into  the  very  thick  of  actual  life.  Spirit- 
ual restlessness  drives  them  away:  spiritual  rest- 
lessness, unsatisfied  forever  in  any  region  of  the 
sheltered  past,  blows  them  forth  once  more  out  into 
the  wind-swept,  bracing  world.  The  strong  impulse 
of  romance  entices  them  to  unfamiliar  fields,  mys- 
terious and  dim  with  the  charm  of  the  unknown : 


THE   OUTCOME  197 

the  stronger  impulse  towards  realism  drives  them 
back  again,  to  seek  stimulus  and  inspiration  in  the 
wider  mystery  of  the  familiar.  Only  one  school,  I 
the  school  of  the  Dreamers,  remains  contentedly 
apart  from  the  modern  world.  Keats  and  his 
children  after  the  imagination  —  Rossetti,  Swin- 
burne, Morris  —  deliberately  sunder  themselves 
from  what  lies  around  them  and  take  refuge  in 
fair  ghosts  whose  very  warmth  of  color  is  illusion 
—  shadow,  not  substance.  Even  among  these  poets 
Rossetti  is  at  times  borne  out  upon  the  surges  of 
actual  passion,  Swinburne  finds  no  rest  in  any 
past,  roaming  from  mythical  Greece  to  modern 
England,  while  Morris  in  these  later  years  has 
impatiently  shaken  himself  free  from  the  cling- 
ing loveliness  of  dreamland  and  flung  himself  full 
on  the  brutal  facts  of  the  Socialist  propaganda. 
As  for  our  greater  poets,  they,  with  no  other  ex- 
ception, give  their  full  power,  the  entire  weight 
and  force  of  their  genius,  not  to  revivals  of  the 
past,  but  to  entirely  modern  work.  The  reproduc- 
tions of  the  past  are  a  side  issue  in  the  work  of 
Wordsworth  and  Shelley,  of  Arnold  and  Tenny- 
son and  Browning.  The  whole  literary  movement 
towards  the  past,  significant  and  interesting  as  it 
is,  is  only  an  eddy  in  the  great  onward  flow  of  the 
river  of  the  imagination. 

What  is  the  result  of  the  quest  of  our  poets  in 
the  past?  Putting  the  aesthetic  interest  and  value 
of  these  revivals  aside,  how  far  does  the  search  for 
a  spiritual  abiding-place,  which  is  after  all  their 
inspiration  and  reason  for  being,  lead  to  success? 


198  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

Neo-paganism,  as  an  interpretation  of  life,  assur- 
edly fails.  Joyous,  instinctive,  and  wholly  lovely 
in  the  work  of  Keats,  it  passes  into  stoicism  austere 
yet  wistful  in  Matthew  Arnold,  and  to  open  rebel- 
lion and  bitter  fatalism  in  the  poetry  of  Swinburne. 

The  mediaeval  revival  cannot  satisfy  our  poets 
even  for  an  hour.  It  is  half  -  hearted  from  the 
first;  literary  and  critical  rather  than  spontaneous. 
No  poet  yields  himself  to  it  in  frank  conviction 
and  contentment,  and  the  imagination  studies  the 
period  with  deep  interest,  but  never  enters  it. 

The  affiliation  of  the  renaissance  with  our  own 
day  is  more  subtle,  and  seems,  at  first  sight,  more 
complete.  Yet  surely  in  this  period  the  modern 
man  would  perish  of  unsatisfied  desire.  The  poets 
who  rest  in  it  are  esoteric  and  exotic;  the  one 
man  of  sunlight  and  buoyant  freedom  who  is  drawn 
to  it,  criticises  and  transcends,  even  while  he  re- 
veals, the  age. 

No  one  of  the  great  periods  to  which  the  poets 
have  turned  could  satisfy  the  modern  man.  For 
Hellenism  seeks  to  exalt  the  natural  life  to  undis- 
turbed supremacy  and  repose;  but  that  suprem- 
acy cannot  endure.  The  Middle  Ages  sought  to 
set  the  spirit  free  by  annihilation  of  the  flesh,  and 
that  annihilation  we  cannot  try.  The  renaissance 
fusing  violently,  though  half-reluctantly,  the  two 
ideals,  accomplished  in  a  way  the  needed  synthe- 
sis; yet  it  failed.  It  sought  to  gain  in  the  pres- 
ent world  that  completeness  which  the  present 
world  can  never  give;  and  it  emphasized  an  im- 
possible relation,  seeking,  however  unconsciously, 


THE   OUTCOME  199 

that  soul  should  minister  to  flesh  rather  than 
flesh  to  soul.  The  spiritual,  recognized  and  even 
strongly  present  in  its  ideal,  was  yet  subordinate 
to  the  aesthetic;  and  union  on  such  terms  can- 
not endure.  The  art  of  the  renaissance,  old  and 
new,  is  fugitive  and  unstable.  We  must  recog- 
nize the  Spirit  as  the  basal  reality,  and  we  must 
open  life  upward  into  eternity,  would  we  hope 
that  the  Hellenic  ideal  of  completeness  and  the 
mediaeval  ideal  of  aspiration  may  meet  in  unity  and 
lead  to  peace. 

Our  modern  poetry  has  carried  us  far;  so  far 
that  a  crude  sensuousness,  a  crude  asceticism,  are 
equally  impossible  to  the  man  of  keen  and  delicate 
thought.  The  most  superb  beauty  cannot  hold  us 
unless  touched  with  spiritual  desire.  The  joy  is 
characterless  in  which  no  pain  inheres.  No  action 
can  satisfy  nor  rejoice  which  does  not  vibrate  with 
moral  passion.  So  much  we  proclaim  through  our 
loftiest  souls,  we  confess  through  our  most  reluc- 
tant. The  completeness  of  natural  good  and  the 
fullness  of  spiritual  aspiration  must,  to  satisfy  us, 
meet  and  blend. 

But  the  perfect  union  is  not  found.  For  still 
the  most  refined  ideal  of  the  day  quivers  towards 
the  conviction  that  spirit  may  exist  for  flesh,  not 
flesh  for  spirit.  With  the  lost  soul  we  exclaim :  — 

"  Let  spirit  star  the  dome 
Of  sky,  that  flesh  may  need  no  peak, 
No  nook  of  earth  —  I  shall  not  seek 
Its  service  further."  1 

1  Browning  :  Easter  Day. 


200  THE  NEW  RENAISSANCE 

A  conviction,  subtle  and  supreme,  invades  us, 
that  morality  may  exist  to  the  end  of  experience, 
holiness  to  the  end  of  beauty;  that  emotion  and 
art,  rather  than  thought  and  character,  are  the 
goal  of  thought  and  prayer.  Mysticism  and  real- 
ism have  met,  but  in  an  enchanted  world.  Dimly 
we  catch  glimpses  of  another  union,  where  the 
instincts  of  the  soul  and  the  perceptions  of  the 
senses  blend  in  perfect  harmony,  enduring,  active 
and  pure.  But  within  the  limits  of  the  poetry  of 
the  New  Renaissance,  the  union  is  not  found. 


V 

BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST 

"THERE  is  no  joke  so  true  and  deep  in  actual 
life,"  says  Emerson,  "as  when  some  pure  idealist 
goes  up  and  down  among  the  institutions  Mephisto 

£          •   j.  J    J  1,  T,      l  andldeal- 

oi  society,  attended  by  a  man  who  knows  ist. 
the  world,  and  who,  sympathizing  with  the  philos- 
opher's scrutiny,  sympathizes  also  with  the  con- 
fusion and  indignation  of  the  detected  skulking 
institutions.  His  perception  of  disparity,  his  eye 
wandering  perpetually  from  the  rule  to  the  crooked, 
lying,  thieving  fact,  makes  the  eyes  run  over  with 
laughter." 

Yes !  There  is  one  joke  better  even  than  this. 
It  is  when  the  idealist  and  the  man  of  the  world 
are  bound  up  together  within  that  microcosm 
known  to  us  as  a  personality ;  when,  not  only  side 
by  side,  but  themselves  the  two  sides  of  one  man, 
they  wander  through  the  cities  of  the  earth  and 
its  waste  places,  during  their  mortal  pilgrimage, 
each  intent  on  his  own  vision,  yet  doomed  forever 
to  hear  the  opposing  vision  of  the  other.  Here  is 
joke,  for  there  is  no  incongruity  that  goes  deeper. 
Here,  also,  is  drama.  For  in  this  strangest  fellow- 
ship one  of  the  comrades  must  ultimately  prevail, 
must  prove  himself  the  Strong  Man  and  control 


202  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

the  vision  of  his  brother.  Before  that  final  con- 
quest, what  swayings  of  victory,  what  subtle  passes 
of  weapons !  When  it  is  accomplished,  what  secret 
flow  of  the  life  of  the  conquered  into  the  very  veins 
of  the  conqueror !  Idealist,  or  man  of  the  world 
—  which  shall  it  be  ?  Answer  —  Swift,  Rabelais, 
Cervantes,  Browning! 

The  immense  vitality  and  wide  productiveness 
of  Browning  demand  classification,  but  the  classi- 
fication is  not  yet  found.  Optimist,  realist,  mys- 
tic we  may  call  him  if  we  will,  yet  all  the  while 
we  know  that  the  epithet  touches  only  one  side  of 
his  great  and  placid  nature.  His  robust  versa- 
tility serenely  defies  compression  into  a  phrase. 
Yet  if,  with  the  fatuous  affection  of  mortal  man 
for  labels,  we  insist  on  knowing  by  whose  side  he 
is  to  be  put,  we  shall  find,  I  believe,  his  truest 
abiding-place  if  we  jiame  him  with  the  great  mas- 
ters of  Ironic  Art.  Humor,  and  humor  tinged 
with  irony,  is  the  most  distinctive,  if  not  the  most 
important,  element  in  his  genius.  Its  bitter  aroma 
is  never  long  absent.  We  believe  that  we  breathe 
the  pure  air  of  the  sublime,  and  a  gust  of  satire 
slaps  us  sharply  in  the  face.  We  feel  ourselves 
wrapt  in  religious  ecstasy ;  hey !  presto !  We  are 
in  the  coarsest  region  of  grotesque. 

The  world's  great  humorists  are  few  in  number, 
and  most  of  them,  perhaps,  write  prose.  In  the 
freedom  of  the  more  realistic  art-form,  the  man 
of  the  world  finds  himself  at  home.  The  idealist 
is  likely  to  have  it  all  his  own  way  in  poetry, 
and  pure  idealism  is  never  humorous.  When  the 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST          203 

comic  appears  in  poetry,  it  is  because  the  idealist 
is  embosomed  with  the  man  of  the  world,  so  that 
the  breath  they  draw  is  one.  Chaucer,  the  earth- 
child,  wholesome  and  gay;  Shakespeare,  with  that 
superb  dramatic  vision  which  must  always  be  real- 
istic; certain  writers  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
through  whose  shallower  realism  flashes  a  wit  cold 
with  the  north ;  —  these  men  are  humorists.  But  the 
purist  art  of  Milton  and  Spenser  is  always  serious. 
No  music  of  jesting  blends  with  the  multiform 
harmonies  of  the  "Faerie  Queene;"  how  startling 
the  thought  of  a  hearty  laugh  from  Adam  and  the 
Archangel  Raphael !  The  great  outburst  of  poetic 
idealism  at  the  first  of  our  own  century  is  intensely 
grave.  Peasant-fun  and  peasant- joyousness  bub- 
ble through  the  lilts  of  Burns ;  but  after  his  day, 
gravity  settles  down  upon  us.  Of  the  poets  of  the 
revolution,  only  one  is  ever  merry.  Wordsworth's 
Peddler  in  "The  Excursion  "  assuredly  never  either 
made  or  took  a  joke;  the  blitheness  of  even  his 
Highland  girl  is  too  reticent  for  outward  mirth; 
while  Peter  Bell  and  his  ass  tell  us  with  every 
bray  that  they  live  in  a  world  secure  against  inva- 
sions of  laughter.  There  is  no  more  irony  nor 
absurdity  in  the  poems  of  Shelley  than  in  the  sky 
at  dawn.  Coleridge,  controlling  the  supernatural- 
grotesque,  is  yet  devoid  of  genuine  humor  except  in 
one  or  two  political  poems.  So  is  Keats,  though 
his  seriousness  is  not  moral  but  aesthetic.  One 
poet,  and  one  alone,  of  that  great  early  group,  can 
to-day  reach  our  affections  through  our  amuse- 
ment. If  Byron  lives,  he  lives  by  virtue  of  wit. 


204  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

The  sorrowful  recklessness  of  his  irony  bears  the 
stamp  of  living  power,  unknown  to  his  heroics  or 
his  sentimental  tears.  Byron  alone  among  his 
comrades  is  great  as  a  humorist ;  for  alone  among 
his  comrades  he  was  a  realist.  What  he  saw  was 
doubtless  often  unworthy ;  but  it  had  the  merit  of 
existing. 

We  might  expect  a  strong  development  of  hu- 
mor in  our  Victorian  poets,  since  we  have  all 
turned  realists  nowadays.  In  a  time  of  science, 
of  disillusion,  of  reverence  for  fact,  our  poetry  has 
passed  from  theories  to  experiment,  and  experi- 
ment on  such  queer  stuff  as  actual  human  life 
must  make  us  laugh  when  it  does  not  make  us  cry. 
Yet  as  we  think  it  over,  we  are  tempted  to  feel 
that  we  are  growing  more  and  more  solemn  as  we 
grow  old.  In  the  sacred  precincts  of  Arnold's 
poems,  humor  would  be  a  Philistine  intrusion; 
the  breezes  blow  sedately  here,  with  no  touch  of 
frolic  or  tumult.  Tennyson's  Lancelot  might 
laugh,  but  King  Arthur  would  never  catch  him 
at  it.  Pensive  languor  is  as  essential  to  the  pre- 
Raphaelite  heroine  as  the  grin  to  the  Cheshire  cat. 
The  cat  might  vanish,  but  the  grin  remained ;  so 
all  that  is  earthly  and  substantial  in  these  dim 
maidens  would  melt  into  air  before  an  honest 
gaze;  but  the  full  curve  of  sorrow  to  the  lip,  the 
wistful  wonder  of  the  eye,  would  still  hover  before 
us.  One  only  of  our  minor  Victorian  poets  was 
endowed  by  nature  with  a  hearty  English  sense  of 
fun;  and  Clough's  humor,  saddened  by  incessant 
peering  into  mysteries,  becomes  bitter  and  mock- 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  205 

ing.  Its  pungency  is  not  to  be  forgotten;  but 
Clough's  genius  was  never  robust,  and  his  product, 
slow  and  slight,  hardly  interrupts  the  serious,  al- 
most solemn,  tenor  of  our  Victorian  poetry. 

In  part,  the  trouble  is  with  our  subjects.  When 
towards  the  middle  of  our  century  men  stopped 
grasping  at  abstractions  and  gazing  at  sunsets, 
they  took  to  questioning  their  minds.  Now  gen- 
eral truths  are  obviously  never  humorous,  and  Na- 
ture does  not  display  her  glories  to  stimulate  our 
amusement.  Neither  is  it  exhilarating  nor  funny 
to  "shut  our  eyes  and  muse  how  our  own  minds 
are  made,"  as  Matthew  Arnold  describes  our  pet 
occupation.  The  comic,  though  it  may  exist  in 
the  inner  life,  eludes  capture.  Humor  belongs 
to  the  free  objective  world  of  men  and  women, 
neither  hypostasized  to  divinity  nor  attenuated  to 
shadows.  This  world,  with  its  breadth  and  variety, 
was  the  world  of  those  great  naturalists,  the  Eliz- 
abethan dramatists.  Few  of  our  modern  poets 
have  entered  its  wide  freedom.  We  sigh  or  muse 
or  frown  as  we  read  them ;  but  alas !  we  never 
smile. 

Is  our  poetry,  then,  to  remain  hopelessly  sol- 
emn? Is  "Laughter,  holding  both  his  sides,"  to 
be  banished  from  among  us,  and  Introspection, 
gazing  mournfully  into  shadows  or  among  memo- 
ries, to  replace  him  ?  Let  us  take  comfort !  Our 
most  virile  poet,  our  poet  of  widest  outlook  over 
both  good  and  evil,  of  keenest  dramatic  instinct, 
is  Eobert  Browning.  And  Browning  is  a  mag- 
nificent humorist.  It  could  not  be  otherwise ;  for 


206  BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST 

among  all  our  modern  poets,  he  alone  abandons 
himself  utterly  to  naturalism. 

Our  Victorian  poets  have  many  deep  and  charm- 
ing qualities.     One  thmg^thejcjack :  the  breadth^ 

From  the  freedom  of  life.     The  reason  is  clear: 

Wholes  to        - — : —          : "  • —       .  - „.  '-= — • 

Parts.          their  poetry  is  realistic  it  you  will,  but 

democratic  it  is  not.  Their  realism  is  guarded 
and  subjective,  not  dramatic  and  free.  Clough 
might  have  had  large  freedom,  had  Tie  not  re- 
nounced life  through  seeking  truth  in  the  pure 
idea.  The  others,  even  Tennyson,  are  conscious 
scholars,  conscious  artists,  before  they  are  uncon- 
scious men.  Therefore  they  either  write  up  to  a 
theory  or  out  of  a  personal  and  small  experience. 
Not  so  with  Browning.  No  influence  suppresses 
—  we  can  hardly  say  that  any  influence  moulds  — - 
his  strong  individuality,  yet  the  spirit  of  demo- 
cracy tingles  in  his  form  and  thought.  Not  only 
the  child  of  his  age  but  the  embracer  of  his  age, 
his  naturalism  is  instinctive  and  unlimited;  and 
naturalism  brings  humor  in  its  train.  Humor  is 
subordinate  in  the  revolutionary  poets,  for  it  ap- 
pears only  in  the  weakest,  Byron.  Despite  the 
many  untouched  by  it,  we  may  surely  say  that  it 
is  prominent  in  the  Victorians ;  for  it  pervades,  all 
but  controls,  the  work  of  the  strongest,  Browning. 
In  spite  of  our  large  and  significant  poetry  of 
reversion  and  our  charming  poetry  of  dreams,  our 
modern  literature  dwells  chiefly  in/fhe  present. 
It  loves  best  to  render  the  worldT  directly  around 
us  —  the  visible,  contemporary  ^Fact.  And  Brown- 


BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST  207 

ing  is,  among  Englishmen,  most  uncompromising 
student  of  the  Fact.  In  his  humorous  naturalism, 
broad  and  free  as  life  itself,  he  has  followed  the 
movement  of  the  century.  "Man,  oh,  not  men," 
cried  Shelley,  longing  for  an  abstract  idea  large 
enough  to  gather  without  focusing  all  his  nebu- 
lous emotion.  To-day  we  reverse  the  cry;  it  is 
men,  not  man,  that  we  want.  Nobody,  unless 
perhaps  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  can  get  up  much 
glow  over  Humanity,  but  we  all  have  an  immense 
interest  in  people.  Humor,  says  Emerson  again, 
springs  from  comparing  fractions  with  wholes. 
Eevolutionary  art  busied  itself  with  wholes.  TVP 
clear  away  the  rubbish  of  convention,  and  so  to 
reach  the  essential,  the  typical,  the  normal,  was 
its  end  and  aim.  Wordsworth  is  the  central  ex- 
ponent of  this  aim.  Everywhere  he  sought  the 
complete.  In  maid  or  mere  or  mountain  he  be- 
held the  limited  but  perfect  expression  of  Divine 
Beauty.  He  is  the  father  of  modern  realism,  for 
to  reach  the  simplicity  of  essential  fact  was  his 
desire  and  his  high  achievement.  He  recalled 
poetry,  which  had  strayed  afar,  to  her  true 
starting-point,  and  we  have  done  little  since  but 
follow  the  path  he  pointed  out.  But  it  has  led 
into  a  region  strange  to  him.  We  have  come 
to  naturalism  :  to  the  art  that  does  not  select  ex- 
ceptional though  normal  instances  of  perfection, 
but  reproduces  all  that  it  beholds,  guided  by  one 
only  passion,  the  passion  for  life.  The  infinite 
play  and  struggle  by  which,  through  the  amor- 
phous mass  of  existence,  life  all  around  us  is 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


208  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

pressing  forth  into  harmony,  the  effort  as  well  as 
the  thing  done,  fragments  as  well  as  wholes,  —  this 
is  what  the  naturalist  gives  us;  this  is  the  world 
in  which  the  humorist  moves ;  this  is  the  world  of 
Robert  Browning. 

Browning  can  give  us  art  as  pure  as  that  of 
Wordsworth.  If  from  the  poet  of  the  revolution 
we  have  a  Highland  girl  or  a  Lucy  —  exquisite 
figures,  manifest  by  the  still  radiance  of  the  light 
cast  on  them,  —  we  have  in  the  Victorian  poet  a 
Pompilia,  shining  with  a  white,  heart-centred  lus- 
tre, by  which  all  those  who  move  about  her  are 
revealed.  But  the  distinctive  method  of  Brown- 
ing is  not  simple  and  direct:  it  is  subtle,  sophisti- 
cated, mocking.  People  find  his  writings  obscure, 
doubtless  for  many  reasons ;  one  of  the  chief  being 
the  inability  of  the  average  mind  to  take  a  joke. 
Many  a  poem  baffling  to  the  serious  reader  bent 
on  morals  becomes  daylight  clear  when  read  with 
a  sense  for  the  indirect.  His  people  do  not  wear 
their  heart  on  their  sleeve.  Whether  of  medie- 
val Italy  or  modern  England,  they  live,  literally 
and  figuratively,  indoors.  Shelley's  characters  are 
creatures  of  wave  and  sky;  Wordsworth's  of  green 
English  fields;  Browning's  move  in  the  house,  the 
palace,  and  the  street.  Now  humor  belongs  to 
the  interior,  to  the  haunts  of  men.  It  is  a  product 
of  civilization.  Where  Wordsworth  gives  us  a 
Michael,  Browning  gives  a  Sludge ;  where  Words- 
worth gives  a  Leech  -  Gatherer,  Browning  gives 
a  Bishop;  where  Wordsworth  gives  us  shepherds 
on  the  distant  heights,  dark  against  sunset  gold. 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  209 

Browning  gives  us,  in  the  reeking  court-room,  the 
figures  of  "Publican  black  Ned  Bratts,  and  Tabby 
his  big  wife  too."  The  artificial,  the  abnormal, 
the  absurd,  but  always  first  and  foremost  the  indi- 
vidual, and  hence  the  modern,  —  this  is  the  world 
to  which  we  have  come.  It  would  not  be  fair  to 
say  that  it  is  the  only  world  of  fact,  but  at  least 
it  is  the  only  world  we  know.  Browning  alone, 
among  our  Victorian  poets,  has  entered  it;  for 
Browning  alone,  among  them  all,  has  yielded  him- 
self wholly  to  life. 

The  humorist  grows  slowly.     Through  the  long 
sequence  of  Browning's  poems,  we  may  trace  — 
and  the  study  is  significant  —  the  steady   The  Devel. 
evolution     of    the     humorous     element.    g™££ 
Idealist  and  Mephisto  are  contending  for  Brownin*- 
the  mastery,  and  long  does  the  issue  seem  doubt- 
ful. 

First,  in  "Pauline,"  "Paracelsus,"  and  "Sor- 
dello,"  we  have  a  distinctly  non-humorous  period. 
Written  under  the  dominant  influence  of  Shelley, 
and  imbued  with  the  instinctive  seriousness  of 
youth,  we  could  hardly  expect  these  poems  to  be 
touched  by  the  comic.  In  "Paracelsus  "  there  is  a 
hint  of  the  future ;  for  it  is  with  a  faintly  satirical 
spirit  unlike  the  pure  subjectivity  of  Pauline,  that 
Browning  records  for  us  the  "Aspirations"  —  thin 
bubbles  of  aim  filled  with  empty  ambition  —  of 
the  brilliant,  arrogant,  bombastic  youth.  But  as 
a  rule  the  art  in  these  poems  is  grave,  direct, 
and  pure. 


210  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

The  next  period  is  that  of  the  great  dramas, 
written  between  1836-1846.  And  here  the  humor- 
ous factor  suddenly  appears,  distinct  and  master- 
ful. In  these  dramas,  the  man  of  the  world  boldly 
separates  himself  from  the  idealist,  and  steps,  in 
propria  persona,  upon  the  stage.  Meditative,  a 
thought  cynical,  touched  to  a  sense  half  grieved, 
half  amused,  of  the  paradoxes  of  life,  he  is  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  poets'  satire,  he  is  also  the 
projection  of  half  his  personality,  and  gives  us  a 
new  revelation  of  Eobert  Browning.  He  works 
untold  mischief  by  being  clearer-sighted  than  his 
fellow -men,  and  at  least  in  one  instance,  —  Brown- 
ing's fine  tragedy  of  the  Moor  serving  Florence 
and  betrayed  by  her,  —  has  a  vision  dark  with  ex- 
cess of  light.  Such  a  character  is  Braccio  in  "Lu- 
ria,"  the  Nuncio  in  "The  Return  of  the  Druses." 
Such  are,  in  different  ways,  Bertrand  and  Melchior 
of  "Colombe's  Birthday."  Such,  supremely,  is 
Ogniben  in  "A  Soul's  Tragedy,"  whose  immense 
cleverness  and  terribly  logical  philosophy  leave  the 
whole  situation  in  his  hands. 

Humor  has  in  these  dramas  another  manifesta- 
tion. A  serious  art  indeed  prevails  in  them  with 
one  exception ;  but  for  dramatic  irony  of  the  highest 
sort  they  are  surely  unparalleled  out  of  Shake- 
speare. In  "Pippa  Passes,"  such  irony,  delicate 
and  pure,  is  found  in  the  paradoxical  contrast 
between  the  world  as  it  exists  and  the  world' 
reflected  in  a  girlish  soul;  in  the  later  dramas 
it  is  bitter  with  a  bitterness  literally  unto  death. 
"Luria,"  "The  Return  of  the  Druses,"  "The  Blot 


BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST  211 

on  the  'Scutcheon,"  are  ironical  in  their  very  warp 
and  woof.  In  "The  Keturn  of  the  Druses,"  the 
ironic  element  conquers  in  every  sense;  in  "The 
Blot"  and  "Luria,"it  is  spiritually  transcended, 
but  determines  the  material  catastrophe.  "A 
Soul's  Tragedy,"  study  in  triumphant  satire,  has 
some  of  Browning's  keenest  work.  One  and  only 
one  of  these  dramas,  "Colombe's  Birthday,"  a 
nymph  among  heroes  and  satyrs,  has  the  mocking 
element  subordinate,  though  present,  and  passes  to 
an  end  both  spiritually  and  materially  triumphant. 
We  come  now  to  the  great  central  period,  from 
"Men  and  Women  "  in  1855  to  "The  King  and  the 
Book  "  in  1870.  This  period,  including  as  it  does 
the  principal  short  poems,  is  the  most  fecund  in 
Browning's  genius;  the  time  when  the  superb 
vitality  and  glowing  imaginative  power  of  youth 
rush  to  meet  and  inform  the  virile  philosophy  and 
wide  experience  of  maturer  years.  In  these  de- 
lightful poems,  Browning's  humor  attains  its  widest 
range  and  highest  buoyancy.  It  is  not  only  subtly 
pervasive,  as  in  the  dramas;  it  controls  whole 
poems,  having  matters  quite  its  own  way.  And 
what  scope  and  sweep  it  displays!  The  pure 
comic  of  "Up  at  a  Villa  —  Down  in  the  City," 
the  fine  grotesque  of  "Holy-Cross  Day,"  the 
whimsicality  of  "Master  Hughues  of  Saxe-Gotha," 
the  satire  of  "  Sludge  "  and  "  Blougram,"  the  deli- 
cate mockery  of  "  Confessions,"  the  high  spirits  of 
"  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,"  and  the  indescribable  quality 
of  that  strange  union  of  mysticism  and  irony, 
"  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess  "  —  all  these  are  but 


212  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

instances,  chosen  at  random,  of  the  splendid  ease 
and  force  of  handling,  the  lambent  fire  of  spirit, 
in  these  brilliant  poems.  Rich  in  humor  of  situa- 
tion as  they  are  in  dramatic  suggestiveness,  it  is 
in  that  deepest  humor  which  inheres  in  human 
character  that  they  excel,  and  they  thus  belong  to 
the  highest  region  of  humorous  art. 

But  it  is  in  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  magnum 
opus  in  every  sense,  that  Browning's  humorous 
power  reaches  its  climax.  Here  humor  of  situa- 
tion and  of  character  combine ;  here,  in  the  face  of 
death  and  shame,  idealist  and  man  of  the  world  hold 
one  long  terrible  colloquy.  The  serious  and  the 
satirical  element  meet  and  balance  in  perfect  equi- 
poise. Each  has  apparently  full  freedom,  neither 
is  impeded  nor  overborne.  The  blending  of  ele- 
ments in  this  superb  poem  Browning  never  equaled. 
His  genius  passed  into  another  phase :  a  phase  of 
pure  satire. 

At  first,  the  idealist  had  conquered  unmolested; 
later,  he  had  been  forced  into  a  reluctant  duet 
with  Mephisto;  but  he  had  never  yet  been  over- 
borne. 

Browning's  last  period  of  creative  power  extends 
from  1871  to  1889.  "Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwan- 
gau,"  "Fifine  at  the  Fair,"  "Red  Cotton  Night- 
cap Country,"  "Aristophanes'  Apology,"  "The 
Inn  Album,"  are  the  chief  poems  of  this  period. 
Often  enough  they  have  baffled  the  poet's  readers. 
For  here  satire  rules  supreme,  no  longer  alternating 
with  serious  art,  and  paradox  is  life  itself.  The 
poems  are  successive  studies  in  spiritual  failure. 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  213 

"Fifine  at  the  Fair"  demonstrates  the  insincerity 
of  affection,  "Prince  Hohenstiel "  the  insincerity  of 
statesmanship,  "Aristophanes"  the  insincerity  of 
art.  Compromise  between  religion  and  passion 
is  the  theme  in  "Red  Cotton  Nightcap  Country," 
the  gradual  death  of  the  spirit  bound  by  the  world 
or  sin,  in  "The  Inn  Album."  The  method  of 
mockery  shapes  the  poems.  Browning  brings 
home  to  us,  with  cynical  amusement,  the  ludicrous 
failure  of  our  ideals,  in  the  world  of  love,  of 
action,  or  of  art. 

Thus  humor,  increasingly  accentuated  in  Brown- 
ing's work,  becomes  dominant  at  the  end.  From 
the  grave  Shelleyan  idealism  of  "Pauline"  we 
pass  to  the  faint  hint  of  satire  in  "Paracelsus," 
on  to  the  strong  use  of  dramatic  irony  in  the  dra- 
mas, and  the  vigorous  development  of  ironical  and 
grotesque  art  in  the  great  monologues.  In  "The 
Ring  and  the  Book,"  the  watershed  of  Brown- 
ing's genius,  the  springs  of  humor  and  of  pathos 
meet.  Finally,  in  the  masterly  poems  of  the  last 
period,  Browning  the  Satirist  stands  undisguised 
before  us.  His  closing  work,  a  series  of  short 
poems,  strikes  once  more  a  serious  note.  Leav- 
ing them  out  of  account  for  the  moment,  we  find, 
from  "Pauline"  to  "Aristophanes'  Apology,"  a 
steady  development  of  ironic  art.  From  the  latent 
mockery  of  "Paracelsus  "  to  the  final  translation  of 
the  entire  human  drama  into  satire,  the  voice  of 
the  man  of  the  world  grows  constantly  in  volume 
and  penetration.  Mephisto  or  idealist  —  which  pre- 
vails? We  cannot  yet  answer  the  question.  But 


214  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

we  may  at  least,  in  view  of  the  ceaseless  vigor  of 
their  conflict,  assert  with  confidence  that  Robert 
Browning  is  a  great  humorist. 

Now  let  us  be  more  specific.  Let  us  try  to  find 
Grotesque  where  Browning's  special  province  lies 
Browning,  within  this  great  kingdom  of  humorous 
art.  In  the  pure  comic  he  does  not  excel.  The 
joyous,  intellectualized  animalism  of  Falstaff  is 
out  of  his  ken.  So  are  the  pure  high  spirits,  the 
farcical  delight  in  whimsicality,  of  Dickens  or 
Dekker.  So  is  the  delicate  and  witty  grace  of  an 
evanescent  society,  so  delightfully  caught,  in  all 
its  diaphanous  charm,  by  the  art  of  Dobson. 
Browning  is  seldom  light-hearted.  When  he  so 
pleases,  indeed,  he  can  give  us  excellent  fooling. 
The  Pied  Piper  has  a  right  to  entice  into  the 
Weser  with  his  bagpipes  any  one  who  would 
insinuate  that  his  creator  cannot  tell  a  story  for 
pure  delight.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  anything 
funnier  in  its  way  than  the  soliloquy  of  the  Italian 
nobleman,  pining  for  the  joys  of  the  town,  of  "Up 
at  a  Villa  —  Down  in  the  City."  If  there  is  satire 
in  this  delightful  reversal  of  sentimental  standards, 
pure  amusement  is  its  result.  Still  on  the  whole, 
the  saying  as  true;  Browning's  muse  is  buoyant, 
but  she  is  not  joyous.  Nor  is  the  reason  far  to 
seek.  The  comic  is  the  region  of  pure  forms, 
while  the  tragic  is  the  region  of  ungarnished  fact. 
Our  delight  in  escaping  to  the  society  of  a  Falstaff 
or  a  Micawber  comes  from  the  relief  which  these 
immoral  creatures  afford  to  our  jaded  sense  of 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  215 

right.  We  cannot  expect  simple  comedy  from 
Browning;  for  he  never  releases  us,  perhaps  no 
Victorian  poet  ever  could  release  us,  from  the  grip 
of  fact.  The  ethical  is  with  him  ingrain.  His 
peculiar  humor  has  a  special  source:  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  double  point  of  view,  that  of  form  and 
fact  together,  and  the  sense  of  the  incongruity 
between  them.  His  wide  cleverness  sees  instantly 
the  world  of  forms,  his  imagination  as  swiftly 
peers  into  the  depths  of  fact.  He  will  show  us 
both  at  once,  and  the  result  fairly  stings  us  with 
its  cleverness.  Take,  for  instance,  the  little  poem 
called  "  A  Likeness."  The  humor,  missed  by  many 
people,  all  comes  from  the  contrast  between  the 
outer  indifference  and  the  real  passion,  the  ludi- 
crous colloquialism  of  the  conventional  slangy  young 
man  and  his  immensely  romantic  sentiment.  Now 
from  this  contrast  between  form  and  substance 
spring  two  great  branches  of  humorous  art  — Jhe 
Grotesque  and  the  Satiric.  It  is  in  these  branches 
that  Browning  is  master.  His  place  is  with  Cer- 
vantes rather  than  withjJjckens,  with  Swift  rather 
than  with  MarkJTwain. 

The  reasons  which  draw  Browning  towards  gro- 
tesque art  have  been  already  hinted.  The  dem- 
ocratic realism  of  the  century,  proclaiming  the 
sacredness,  not  only  of  the  simple,  but  of  the  ugly, 
and  forcing  us  to  penetrate  all  alien  experience; 
romanticism,  force  vague  but  vital,  which  ever 
seeks  the  individual,  dwells  on  the  startling,  craves 
the  abnormal  and  the  incomplete;  the  scientific 
spirit,  with  its  vast  curiosity ;  —  all  these  causes, 


216  BROWNING   AS  A   HUMORIST 

blending  into  one,  as  indeed  it  is  impossible  to 
separate  them,  are  responsible  for  Browning's  in- 
stinctive attraction  towards  grotesque  art.  How 
strange  are  his  studies  of  anomalies!  The  man- 
beast,  Caliban;  the  blear-eyed  grammarian,  who 
has  never  lived,  carried  with  rhythmic  tread  to 
his  high  grave ;  Ned  Bratts  and  his  wife,  uncouth, 
sweating,  devout  creatures,  touched  by  the  grace 
of  God;  Porphyria's  lover,  and  Johannes  Agri- 
cola;  the  greasy  Jews  of  Holy-Cross  Day,  with 
the  fierce  incongruity  between  their  outward  guise 
and  inner  passion ;  the  monks  of  the  Spanish 
cloister ;  —  all  crowd  in  on  us,  vindicating  Brown- 
ing's weird  claim  to  be  Master  of  the  Revels  of 
the  fantastic,  the  grotesque,  and  the  insane.  Not 
since  the  superb  and  sombre  studies  in  lunacy 
of  the  old  English  dramatists,  with  their  masques 
and  dances  of  madmen  and  their  intensification 
of  disease  and  crime,  has  imagination  of  this 
order  been  known.  Pathological  studies  if  you 
will,  these  poems  yet  vindicate  their  right  to  ex- 
ist by  the  fact  that  they  do  exist;  that  they  force 
swift,  fiery  passage  to  our  consciousness  of  Fact. 
Not  only  this:  though  deformed  they  are  never 
monstrous.  Browning  portrays  no  Frankensteins, 
hideous  births  of  the  darkness,  whom  if  we  could 
we  would  ignore,  creatures  of  no  claim  to  intrude 
among  men  and  women.  It  is  essential  humanity 
which  he,  no  less  than  Wordsworth,  seeks  to  give 
us.  Wider  in  range  than  the  earlier  poet,  his 
interest  centres  in  the  variations  on  the  central 
theme  played  by  the  queer  freaks  of  Nature,  but 


BROWNING  AS  A    HUMORIST  217 

the  theme  is  always  there.  Browning  never  sinks 
into  the  vulgar  art  that  exults  in  sheer  deformity, 
the  art  of  a  Zola  or  a  Tourneur. 

The  height  and  the  abyss,  grotesque  and  glori- 
ous, lie  very  near  together  in  his  work.  Hence 
the  abrupt  swiftness  of  his  transitions.  Other 
poets  keep  their  soul's  agony  and  their  sense  of 
the  ridiculous  somewhat  apart.  "Manfred"  is 
hardly  ludicrous  to  his  creator.  But  in  Browning, 
hero  turns  clown,  clown  hero,  with  no  word  of 
warning.  Idealist  does  not  even  step  behind  the 
scene  to  change  his  costume.  A  wink,  and  the 
man  of  the  world  is  before  us.  These  changes  of 
attitude  are  never  so  startling  as  in  the  religious 
poems.  In  "Christmas  Eve,"  for  instance,  the 
coughs  and  whines  and  warts,  the  dripping  gar- 
ments and  pudgy  umbrellas  of  the  congregation, 
and  the  exasperated  contempt  of  the  visitor,  give 
place  instantly  to  the  majestic  vision  of  the  Christ 
arisen,  and  the  mood  of  contrite  adoration.  A 
new  departure  in  poetry,  indeed !  What  shall  we 
say  for  it,  except  that,  whether  it  be  art  or  no,  it 
is  singularly  like  life? 

And  what  more  can  we  say,  or  what  different, 
of  Browning's  amazing  style — that  style  which  at 
one  moment  reaches  the  purity  of  lyric  rapture  or 
the  earnest  force  of  meditation,  and  again  breaks 
into  a  jog-trot  worse 'than  a  Sapolio  advertisement! 
One  thing  we  can  say,  one  only:  that  the  style 
always  matches  the  theme,  with  perfect  subtlety 
and  fluid  ease.  For  a  brutal  subject,  brutal 
rhythm,  brutal  rhyme!  Browning's  large  and 


218  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

easy  extension  of  poetic  art,  his  frequent  incur- 
sions into  the  method  of  prose,  are  only  a  return 
to  the  vigorous  almost  insolent  freedom  with  which 
the  old  dramatists  handle  their  mother-tongue. 
To  many  of  us,  this  style,  with  its  unspeakably 
ridiculous  rhymes,  its  unlimited  variety  of  meas- 
ures, its  daring  colloquialisms,  and  its  easy  power 
of  rising  into  austere  strength  or  limpid  beauty, 
seems  almost  an  ideal  instrument  for  rendering 
the  pathetic  absurdity  of  our  human  life,  where 
the  divine  is  revealed,  if  revealed  at  all,  through 
the  angular,  the  vulgar,  and  the  confused.  In 
a  world  where  the  ridiculous  is  organically  one 
with  the  holy,  the  style  may  well  be  the  vesture  of 
the  thought.  Many  people,  to  be  sure,  prefer  the 
grotesque  rendered  in  Miltonic  blank  verse;  and 
there  is  plenty  of  poetry  written  for  them. 

Striking  though  the  grotesque  element  in  Brown- 
ing may  be,  it  lies  less  deep  than  his  satire.  Irony 
ironic  Art  radical  and  bitter  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
!£g.  r°  latent  in  his  work  from  the  days  of  "  Para- 
celsus "  and  becomes  dominant  ere  the  close.  Never 
has  there  been  manifest  a  more  fiendlike  subtlety 
in  all-pervasive  skepticism  than  Browning,  when 
he  likes,  can  show  us.  Mephisto  has  grown  wise 
with  age;  he  no  longer  denies  sacred  things  nor 
pure  emotions.  Goethe's  coarser  Mephisto  may 
do  so,  but  the  delicate  fiend  of  Browning  patron- 
izes the  spiritual  sphere.  No  ignoring  of  the  soul, 
my  friend.  We  do  not  despise  a  worn  Elvire: 
we  recognize  her  charm  in  her  pale  gravity  of 


BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST  219 

sorrow,  but  this  charm  we  cherish,  that  we  may 
return  with  more  entire  zest  to  the  bronzed  limbs, 
the  impudent  pose,  the  heyday  of  the  senses,  in 
"that  fizgig  named  Fifine."  Let  us  cherish  the 
soul;  for  without  its  haunting  rebuke,  its  fine, 
faint  ministries,  the  luxury  of  flesh  were  incom- 
plete ! 

Such  an  attitude  is  obviously  remote  from  a 
simple  and  innocent  civilization.  In  primitive 
times  the  good  is  beautiful,  the  noble  is  true. 
Wordsworth  and  Shelley,  poets  of  tender  instinct 
for  the  Fair  and  Eight,  give  us  a  world  where 
there  is  almost  a  sacramental  unity  between  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  and  the  inward  and  spir- 
itual grace.  With  Browning  we  enter  a  different 
region  —  the  region  of  Bishop  Blougram,  "who  said 
true  things  and  called  them  by  wrong  names." 
Soul  and  body  have  gotten  awry,  semblance  con- 
tradicts reality,  the  good  is  a  factor  in  the  bad. 
In  this  sophisticated  and  contradictory  world, 
where  "we  called  the  chessboard  black,  we  call  it 
white,"  a  Pompilia  saves  her  soul  alive  by  eloping 
with  a  priest,  while  a  Florentine  lady  dooms  hers 
to  lingering  death  by  loyalty  to  her  husband. 
Here  the  devil  tempts  Jules  to  reject  impurity, 
and  Luigi  to  refrain  from  murder.  Browning  is 
the  poet  of  paradox.  It  could  not  be  otherwise 
were  he  to  be  the  poet  of  his  age. 

Nowhere  is  Browning's  satire  keener  or  more 
subtly  pervasive  than  in  his  great  central  poem, 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book."  Ironic  in  its  very 
framework  is  this  story  of  the  child  of  the  woman 


220  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

of  the  street  —  Pompilia,  saint  and  martyr.  Mag- 
nificently sarcastic  is  the  handling  of  the  manifold 
opinions  of  the  world,  the  perverted  consciousness 
of  the  husband.  The  ironic  intention  is  missed 
by  many  readers.  It  is  a  temptation  in  the  vast 
labyrinth  of  the  poem  to  choose  for  enjoyment 
the  high,  pure,  poetic  monologues  of  Pompilia, 
Caponsacchi,  the  Pope,  and  Guido,  and  to  dismiss 
the  rest  as  tedious  and  obscure.  The  obvious  in- 
terest indeed  centres  in  the  woful  story;  we  mourn 
for  Pompilia  as  for  Desdemona,  we  thrill  to  Ca- 
ponsacchi as  to  Romeo.  This  is  right  and  well, 
yet  it  fulfills  but  half  of  the  great  intention  of 
Browning.  Guido  has  murdered  Pompilia:  shall 
he  live  or  die?  Here  is  the  theme;  but  our  in- 
terest grows  slighter  in  the  central  story  than  in 
its  effect  on  the  minds  of  men.  Speaker  after 
speaker  gives  us  his  interpretation,  his  effort  to 
reach  eternal  verity ;  speaker  after  speaker  shows 
us  his  own  natural  prejudice  predetermining  his 
thought.  As  we  proceed,  the  satire  becomes 
fierce,  scathing,  overwhelming,  till  to  find  Truth 
seems  impossible,  not  because  of  objective  paradox, 
but  because  of  subjective  prepossession.  Surely 
psychological  analysis  never  went  so  far,  the  per- 
sonal equation  was  never  so  vividly  presented  in 
its  practical  workings.  Half  Rome  condemns  Pom- 
pilia ;  has  he  not  reason  ?  Does  he  not  know  him- 
self what  it  is  to  have  a  fair  young  wife  to  guard? 
The  other  half  condemns.  How  pitiful  her  wounds ! 
Such  suffering  argues  innocence  indeed  —  to  the  sen- 
timental heart.  With  the  monologues  of  the  Law- 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  221 

yers,  the  irony  deepens.  The  man  whose  flowery 
rhetoric  defends  her,  never,  in  his  cynical  mind, 
questions  her  guilt  nor  shrinks  from  it.  After 
her  death,  employed  to  blacken  her  memory,  he 
cheerfully  formulates  invective  where  he  had  lav- 
ished tears.  On  the  other  side,  Don  Hyacinthus, 
domestic,  fat,  and  gay,  seeks  to  fasten  on  Pompilia 
the  stigma  of  horrible  sin ;  he  bends  himself  to  the 
task,  a  whistle  on  his  lips,  the  love  of  good  Latin 
in  his  mind,  and  in  his  heart  a  thought  of  the 
little  son  whose  birthday  treat  he  is  preparing.  By 
stroke  after  stroke,  Browning  deepens  the  satiric 
impression.  The  nuns  in  the  convent  have  knelt 
in  reverence  around  the  couch  where  Pompilia 
breathes  forth  her  white  soul;  nay,  hints  of  mir- 
aculous healing  —  are  they  not  murmured  ?  Look 
on  a  few  months.  What  is  this  ?  The  convent  gone 
to  law  to  prove  her  guilty !  For  by  a  legal  quib- 
ble, if  her  child  was  born  out  of  wedlock,  her 
inheritance  is  theirs.  Again,  we  have  been  ad- 
mitted to  the  presence  of  Guido  in  the  prison. 
We  have  heard  his  snarling  blasphemies,  and  have 
listened,  our  hearts  still  with  horror,  to  his  last 
ravings  of  bestial  fear :  — 

"  Cardinal,  take  away  your  crucifix, 
Abate,  leave  my  lips  alone,  they  bite.  .  .  . 
I  thought  you  would  not  slay  impenitence."  * 

Abate  and  Cardinal,  pallid  and  sombre,  have 
stood  beside  us  in  this  prison-hell.  What  say  the 
two  grave  Churchmen  of  the  hideous  interview? 
We  hear  their  version  later. 

1  The  Ring  and  the  Book ;  Guido,  2229,  2230,  and  2239. 


222  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

"  They  both  report,  their  efforts  to  dispose 
The  unhappy  nobleman  for  ending  well, 
Despite  the  natural  sense  of  injury 
Were  crowned  at  last  with  a  complete  success."  1 

We  have  also  a  spectator's  glimpse  of  the  dying 
man,  into  whose  abject  soul  we  have  peered  with 
disgust  and  horror :  — 

"  His  intrepidity,  nay,  nonchalance, 
As  up  he  stood  and  down  he  sat  himself, 
Struck  admiration  into  all  who  saw.  .  .  . 
And,  with  the  name  of  Jesus  on  his  lips, 
Received  the  fatal  blow."  a 

Saint  and  unflinching  hero!  Hail  and  farewell 
to  thee,  Guido,  as  thou  leavest  this  queer  world  of 
Shows  for  the  unknown  world  of  Fact ! 

Thus  is  given  us  the  sorrowful  Story,  flashed 
back  from  mind  after  mind,  each  time  with  a  dif- 
ferent lustre.  The  end  of  it  all  seems  summed  up 
by  the  obscure  Augustinian  monk  who  had  listened 
to  the  dying  words  of  Pompilia,  as  he  cries :  — 

"  Who  trusts 

To  human  testimony  for  a  fact 
Gets  this  sole  fact  —  himself  is  proved  a  fool."  8 

The  Augustinian  himself,  nay  the  very  Pope  —  we 
are  not  allowed  to  pause  without  the  insinuation 
of  their  meanness  of  motive :  they  too  can  be  inter- 
preted as  judging,  not  according  to  eternal  laws, 
but  to  personal  and  petty  instincts. 

Vanity  and  delusion!  Such  seems  our  human 
life.  And  the  pitiful  failure  to  judge  truly,  this 
universal  distrust,  this  absence  of  absolute  stand- 

1  The  Ring  and  the  Book,  125-128.        2  Ibid.  135-137,  188,  189. 
3  Ibid.  599-601. 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST          223 

ards,  —  is  it  then  humorous  ?  Yes,  verily,  to  the 
mind,  but  the  laughter  of  thought  turns  to  the 
tears  of  love.  The  old  lawyer,  chuckling  inno- 
cently as  he  destroys  Pompilia's  fame,  is  comic  to 
the  mind;  but  to  the  heart  he  is  tragic,  for  the 
heart  knows  no  laughter,  and  the  incongruities  of 
life  torture  rather  than  tickle  it.  It  has  been 
pointed  out  that  the  CEdipus  tale  would  make  a 
capital  farce;  and  the  woful  story  of  Pompilia, 
reflected  in  the  minds  of  man,  wears  masks  of  vary- 
ing mockery,  which  suggests  that  human  life  is  all 
one  evil  joke. 

What  does  it  all  mean?  From  this  play  of 
conflicting  shadows,  from  this  kaleidoscopic  world 
where  the  saint  is  the  whore  and  the  hero  Mockery  of 
is  the  dastard  and  the  seer  is  the  imbe-  Truth' 
cile,  what  is  the  final  impression?  Browning  him- 
self gives  it  to  us :  — 

"  Words  are  vain  — 
Our  human  testimony  words  and  wind." 

The  unreality  of  life  is  heavy  upon  him.  The 
grand  monologue  of  the  Pope  has  this  for  direct 
theme,  and  would  be  sufficient,  even  were  there 
no  other  hint,  to  show  the  central  purpose  of 
"The  Ring  and  the  Book."  Satiric  in  its  essence, 
Browning's  spirit,  through  the  lips  of  a  Braccio, 
a  Tresham,  a  Jules,  a  Blougram,  sends  ringing 
down  the  century  the  old  question,  "  What  is 
Truth?  "  Not  Swift,  not  Rabelais,  has  felt  this 
question  more  passionately  or  cut  more  ruthlessly 
into  the  fair  shows  of  life,  to  reveal  the  dust  at 


224  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

its  heart.  What  is  Truth?  A  St.  John  may  give 
his  answer,  a  Caliban  his  as  well.  The  question 
haunts  the  highest  and  most  serious  poems,  as  well 
as  those  directly  humorous. 

Browning  is  philosophical;  he  is  also,  and  first 
and  foremost,  personal.  His  virile  humanity  turns 
by  preference  to  life  in  the  concrete.  If  Truth 
indeed  elude  us,  how  of  Truthfulness  ?  Sincerity ! 
Where  shall  we  find  it?  In  this  world  of  fleeting 
impulses  and  veiled  impressions,  how  can  a  man 
be  sure  that  he  is  true,  even  to  the  truth  he  sees? 
Caliban  may  be  honest  through  and  through  in 
his  mistaking  for  God  Setebos,  his  own  monstrous 
shadow:  what  shall  we  say  of  the  reflective  vein 
of  a  Don  Juan,  where  willful  and  instinctive  casu- 
istry blend;  of  a  Napoleon,  en  woven  in  tissue 
after  tissue  of  half -unconscious  lies?  Creatures 
of  the  false  so  utterly  that  they  are  never  sure 
they  are  not  speaking  the  truth,  we,  too,  as  we 
listen  to  their  specious  frank  utterances,  lose  our- 
selves in  the  dim  borderland  of  fact  and  fancy, 
right  and  wrong.  Thus  by  easy  gradation  we 
advance  into  the  region  of  Browning's  greatest 
power,  the  region  of  Delusion.  Studies  in  Delu- 
sion! How  many  he  has  given  us,  how  marvel- 
ously  varied !  How  the  conscious  cheat  melts  into 
the  instinctive  self -deceiver,  how  that  which  seems 
deception  torments  us  with  the  question  whether 
it  be  not  true !  Sludge  is  intensely  superstitious, 
cheat  though  he  be.  Blougram  is  not  at  all  Sure 
that  miracles  do  not  happen  after  all.  Poor  Leonce 
Miranda,  with  all  his  practical  infidelity,  is  sure 


BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST  225 

enough  that  they  do  to  make  the  supreme  test  of 
faith  and  fling  himself  from  the  tower  of  Clair- 
vaux,  resting  on  the  mercy  of  Our  Lady.  And 
how  intensely  men  can  be  deceived  in  them- 
selves! Witness  Chiappino,  hero  and  martyr  to 
his  own  consciousness;  nay,  here  's  the  subtlety  of 
the  thing,  actually  such,  for  one  brief  moment. 
Behold  the  high-souled  patriot,  by  process  of  in- 
disputable logic,  false  friend,  the  prefect  of  the 
town,  the  four  and  twentieth  renegade  leader  of  re- 
volt. Not  only  the  ignoble  but  the  noble  souls  are 
tainted  to  their  own  torment.  A  Djabal  feels  for 
his  Druse  nation  a  deep  and  genuine  love.  Is  it 
not  for  their  good  that  he  plays  Hakeem?  Nay, 
so  murmurs  a  question  in  his  quivering  Oriental 
soul,  may  he  not  be  Hakeem,  after  all?  From 
such  delusions,  which  we  may  still  count  as  nor- 
mal, Browning  advances  swiftly  and  without  break 
to  the  abnormal  type.  The  moral  and  intellectual 
delusions,  conscious  and  unconscious,  melt  into  the 
vagaries  of  insanity  —  those  vagaries  which  Brown- 
ing has  depicted  with  greater  force  and  insight 
than  any  poet  since  Webster.  He  places  us  at 
the  frenzied  heart  of  those  who  burn  the  heretic, 
thinking  that  they  do  God  service,  of  a  Johannes 
Agricola  or  a  Porphyria's  lover;  and  as  we  shud- 
der there  we  realize  that  such  distorted  sincerity 
in  all  its  horror  differs  only  in  degree  from  the 
fluctuating  and  creeping  falsity  which  veins  not 
only  the  surface  but  the  depth  of  human  life. 

The  world  cannot  find  Truth,  though  with  many 
voices  it  proclaim  her;  the  soul  cannot  find  her, 


226  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

though  it  seek  with  tears.  Sincerity  in  a  world 
of  delusion  is  the  central  delusion  of  all.  Such 
seems  to  be  the  impression  left  by  Browning's 
unflinching  poetry.  The  idealist,  indeed,  in  the 
presence  of  fact,  has  small  option  save  to  turn  to 
satire,  especially  when  the  man  of  the  world  is 
ever  at  his  ear  with  sharp,  triumphant  whisper. 
The  satire  shall  be  light  when  we  can  so  keep  it, 
fierce  when  it  eludes  restraint,  but  always  ruthless. 
Chief  satisfaction  left  to  the  poor  idealist  is  the 
sense  of  power  in  penetrating  shams.  No  one  has 
known  the  joy  of  this  intellectual  exercise  more 
thoroughly  than  Browning,  for  no  idealist  has 
ever  understood  worldliness  so  completely.  The 
warmth  and  glimmer  of  sunrise  is  in  Shelley  and 
Keats;  Browning  leads  us  into  atmosphere  dry 
and  cold,  gray  Autumn  weather  keen  with  wind. 
"Luce  intellettual,  piena  d'amore,"  Dante  found 
in  Heaven ;  with  Browning  the  light  is  intellectual 
enough,  but  the  love  is  often  conspicuous  by  its 
absence.  Nowhere,  not  in  Kabelais'  "Voyage  de 
la  Dive  Bouteille,"  has  the  play  of  a  mightier  intel- 
lect exposed  the  follies  and  cheapness  of  life.  In 
one  vigorous  poem,  Browning  sums  up  for  us  his 
satirical  philosophy.  "Fifine  at  the  Fair,"  hu- 
morous in  the  very  beat  of  its  swinging  measure 
as  in  its  central  situation,  is  a  study  in  the  relative 
versus  the  absolute,  sense  versus  soul,  false  versus 
truth.  "By  practice  with  the  false  I  reach  the 
true"  is  its  theme.  Figure  after  figure  through 
the  splendid  poem  gives  the  same  conviction :  the 
necessity  of  Falsehood,  life  a  sequence  of  shifting 
shows. 


BROWNING  ASflUMORIST   ,       227 


"  We  bid  a  frank  farewell  to  what  —  we  think  —  should  be, 
And,  with  as  good  a  grace,  welcome  what  is  —  we  find."  l 

"Stage-play,  the  honest  cheating,"  which  has 
abandoned  all  pretense  of  deceiving,  is  the  most 
genuine  thing  in  the  world.  Man  is  a  swimmer. 
Only  by  sustaining  his  body  in  the  sea  of  False 
can  he  keep  breath  and  vision  in  the  air  of  Truth. 
Does  he  try  to  escape  the  sea,  to  rise  free  from 
"this  wash  of  the  world,  wherein,  life  -long,  we 
drift?  "  behold  him  utterly  submerged.  Man  is  a 
lover,  but  he  must  love  the  mountebank  would  he 
apprehend  the  saint.  Human  life  is  one  great 
Carnival,  where  in  mocking  masquerade  throngs 
move  and  waver,  disguised  by  uncertain  grimaces. 
Finally,  in  one  colossal  vision  the  poet  sees  the  un- 
stable falsity  of  all  human  achievement.  Temples 
and  Universities  rise  grandly  serene  around  him.* 
"When  lo  !  A  Something  ails  the  edifice,  it  bends, 
it  bows,  it  buries,"  the  architecture  has  melted 
into  forms  utterly  new,  that  vanish  in  their  turn. 
Eeligion,  Philosophy,  History,  Morality,  Art, 
"above  vicissitude,  we  used  to  hope,"  alike  "evan- 
ish into  dust."  Mocking  Change  is  the  law  of 
earth,  and  Truth's  work  forever  decays. 

The  sense  that  Truth  lies  beyond  our  ken  thus 
haunts  the  poetry  of  Browning;  there  is  another 
sense,  as  haunting   in  its  sorrow.     The  Mockery  of 
failure  to  find  Truth  is  grievous;  more 
grievous,  to  the  poet  of  passion,  is  the  failure  to 
find  Love.    ToBrowning,  as  to  Dante,  "Iqve  is  the, 
1  Stanza  cix. 


228  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

only  ffood  in  the  world;"  but  to  thispoet  of  an 
^laborate^  society,  genuine  love  evades  search  and 
eludes  vision.  For  love  cannot  house  with  conven- 
tion, and  conventions  seem  tp^overn  the  world. 
In  a  series  of  light,  Heine-like  little  poems  where 
the  sob  is  disguised  by  the^  shrug  and  life's  tragedy 
shows  through  its  triviality,  Browning,  with  sad 
mockery,  celebrates  Love's  Failures.  The  world, 
'cold,  fair,  and  courteous,  gains  the  ear  of  weakling 
lovers,  and  three  souls  are  lost.  Seeimng  duty 
steps  between,  and  falsely  sensitive  spirits  lose  life's 
only  good.  Languid  creatures  through  mere  iner- 
tia let  love  escape  them,  and  sink  into  spiritual 
death,  unshriven  by  the  high  absolution  of  passion. 
A  comical  and  conventional  imitation  of  true  sen- 
timent freezes  the  spirit  of  the  winsome  Duchess, 
who  flies  from  intricate  pretenses  to  the  wild  free- 
dom of  a  gypsy  life.  Fickleness,  so  proclaim  an 
Elvire,  a  James  Lee's  Wife,  nay,  Any  Wife  to 
Any  Husband,  —  fickleness  is  the  law  of  man  if  not 
of  woman. 

And  when  a  miracle  happens,  and  real  love  is 
born  into  the  world,  an  unbelieving  generation 
denies  it.  The  utterly  noble  devotion  of  a  Luria 
stimulates  his  watchful  spies  to  ever-fresh  inge- 
nuity in  devising  theories  of  his  guilt.  His  intense 
and  simple  feeling  for  Florence  is  but  disguised 
ambition  in  the  eyes  of  Braccio,  the  subtly  cultured 
man.  We  can  hardly  question  the  design  with 
which  Browning  gives  us,  as  his  one  example  of 
the  pure  dignity  of  perfect  heroism,  no  child  of  the 
civilized  world,  but  a  Moor,  the  Son  of  the  Desert. 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  229 

A  diseased  instinct  of  suspicion,  a  morbidly  critical 
temper,  is  the  note  of  sophisticated  society.  Brac- 
cio  and  Luria  point  the  contrast.  The  tragedy 
and  at  the  same  time  the  deep  humor  of  the  drama 
are  found  in  the  blunders  of  the  worldly  temper, 
confusing  all  best  things  to  ill,  and  ferreting  out 
with  immense  cleverness  far-fetched  and  unpleas- 
ant explanations  of  the  simplest  acts  of  right, 
true-hearted  loyalty.  Luria  conquers,  but  he  dies. 
Distrust  of  love  is  the  nnto  of  rlpa±L.  Studies 
of  hate  Browning  with  strong  power  has  given  us. 
Sometimes  they  are  delicately  etched  with  a  light, 
fine  point,  as  in  "Sibrandus  Schafnaburgensis," 
sometimes^  bitten  with  incisive  sharpness,  as  in  the 
"Soliloquy  in  thft  Spanish  Cloister;"  sometimes 
they  attain  a  Rembrandtesque  intensity,  as  in  the 
sombre  picture  of  Guido.  But  hate,  however  hor- 
rible, is  not  the  worst  of  life.  Far  worse  are 
languor,  inertia,  the  contempt  of  the  world ;  and  on 
these  he  lavishes  his  bitterest  irony,  his  clearest 
scorn.  "Love  is  the  only  good  in  the  world,"  but 
through  a  barren,  wide,  and  dusty  region  must  man 
travel  in  search  of  her  —  a  region  where  the  dust 
raised  by  his  footsteps  .hides  too  often  the  rainbow 
glimmer  of  her  wings.  Surely  it  seems  at  times 
that  the  soul  must  flee  with  the  blithesome  Duchess 
from  this  world  of  shams  and  shows,  and  turn  to 
the  free  mystery  of  Nature,  would  it  enter  the  re- 
ality of  passion.  The  world  the  foe  to  love !  The 
theme  is  not  new,  but  it  has  been  treated  by 
Browning  with  new  poignancy,  because  with  direct 
and  ironical  conviction. 


230  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

Distrust  of  Truth!  Distrust  of  Love!  These 
are  the  notes  of  pessimist  or  cynic.  Men  have 
comparisons:  laughed  at  life  often  enough  because 
By°ron^  their  souls  were  bitter,  and  the  world's 
vote's,061  jesters  are  notoriously  sorrowful.  How 
lal8'  can  it  be  otherwise?  For  the  humorist 
dwells  forever  on  the  discrepancies  and  incongru- 
ities of  life.  These  things  are  ludicrous  to  the 
intellect,  we  have  seen  that  they  are  tragic  to  the 
heart.  The  mere  farceur,  indeed,  may  laugh  at 
ease,  light-hearted  in  a  world  of  pure  forms,  but 
with  the  mere  farceur  we  know  that  Browning  has 
little  in  common.  It  is  Cervantes,  Swift,  and  Ra- 
belais  with  whom  we  placed  him,  and  these  great 
sorrowful  souls  see  life's  tragedy  too  deeply  to 
speak  it.  In  each  of  them,  the  man  of  the  world 
is  final  victor,  and  the  idealist  can  only  assert  him- 
self by  sighs.  Cervantes'  perfect  knight  travels 
through  life  fighting  windmills;  the  wise  states- 
manshij^of  Swift  is  travestied  by  savage  propos- 
als;  Rabelais'  noble  Abbey  of  the  Ideal  Life  is 
to  be  built  by  an  unutterable  rogue.  The  despair 
of  JSwift  is  fierce,  that  of  Cervantes  gently  abso- 
lute; and  if  Rabelais  seems  by  temperament  and 
nationality  to  escape  the  infection  of  sorrow,  it  is 
through  recklessness  and  flippancy  that  he  is  freed. 
It  is  he  who  tells  us  how  when  all  countries  and  all 
philosophies  have  been  explored  by  the  wild  seek- 
ers for  Truth,  they  come  at  last  to  the  Supreme 
Oracle,  the  Divine  Bottle;  and  the  final  word  of 
the  Bottle,  the  central  word  of  the  Rabelaisian 
philosophy,  is  "Trincq." 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  231 

In  the  roll-call  of  our  modern  poets,  we  found 
two  besides  Browning  who  can  answer  to  the  name 
of  humorist:  Byron  and  Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 
Both  are  humorists  because  they  despair.  "Don 
Juan"  and  "Dipsychus"  alike  owe  the  cleverness 
of  their  persiflage  to  the  bitter  perplexity  of  their 
spirit.  A  couple  of  lines  from  a  brother  poet, 
equally  sad  but  less  dowered  with  the  spirit  of 
mockery,  describes  them. 

"  Where  faiths  are  built  on  dust, 
Where  love  is  half  mistrust," 

cries  Arnold,1  describing  human  society.  As  we 
read  Byron  and  Clough,  those  strangely  alien 
spirits,  akin  only  in  their  sorrow  and  their  jest, 
we  seem  to  lose  our  hold  and  drift  into  space.  In 
Byron  we  are  in  the  region  where  love  is  half 
mistrust;  with  Clough  we  enter  that  more  sorrow- 
ful country  where  faith  is  built  on  dust,  and  find 
it  in  truth  "hungry  and  barren  and  sharp  as  the 
sea."  The  great  fear  which  among  all  his  melo- 
dramatic sorrows  wrung  the  heart  of  Byron  with 
a  genuine  pain  was  distrust  of  love.  This  dis- 
trust sobs  through  all  his  stormy  work  —  distrust 
born  indeed  of  personal  fault  and  folly,  but  none 
the  less  bitter  for  that.  It  turned  him  cynic  at 
last,  as  he  lost  all  sense  of  the  purity  and  worth 
of  passion,  and  the  vicious  brilliancy  of  a  "Don 
Juan  "  signals  his  spiritual  end.  If  distrust  of 
love  turns  Byron  cynic,  it  is  distrust  of  truth  that 
turns  Clough  pessimist.  Unlike  Byron,  his  pas- 
sion is  of  head,  not  heart.  His  days  are  over- 

1  Stayirius. 


232  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

shadowed  and  oppressed  by  the  remoteness  of  truth 
from  the  soul  of  man.  His  high  spirit  is  nobly 
constant  to  what  may,  perhaps,  be  more  than  a 
dream ;  but  he  lives  as  the  heroes  of  Webster  die, 
"in  a  mist."  Behind  his  delicate  mockery,  his 
pungent  epigrams,  lies  the  sad  conviction  that  the 
conventions  of  society  are  shams,  and  its  religious 
faith  delusion. 

The  great  humorists  of  the  world  have  been  its 
pessimists  and  unbelievers.  Browning,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  allied  to  them  in  quality  of  insight,  in 
force  of  realistic  genius.  Is  he  of  their  brother- 
hood? Is  his  message  theirs? 

He  can  be  as  hopeless  as  Clough,  as  bitter  as 
Byron.  The  boyish  animalism  of  the  earlier  Don 
Juan  is  almost  innocent  beside  the  specious,  intel- 
lectualized  sensuality  of  the  Don  Juan  of  Fifine. 
No  religious  sophistry  nor  theological  hopelessness 
was  beyond  the  ken  of  the  creator  of  Blougram. 
Byron's  bluster  and  Clough 's  low  sighs  are  forgot- 
ten, as  we  listen  to  the  subtle  intensity  with  which 
the  author  of  "The  Inn  Album"  exposes  earth's 
blunders  and  delusions,  its  follies  and  its  pitiful 
sins.  All  that  goes  to  make  up  cynicism  of  the 
intellect  and  despair  of  the  heart  is  palpably  pres- 
ent to  his  imagination.  The  whole  of  Byron  and 
of  Clough  might  be  comprehended  within  his  vast 
product,  and  the  world  would  miss  no  element  con- 
tributed to  human  thought.  Browning  isjgreater  in 
mocking  insight  than  any  poet  of  the  century ;  nay, 
no  one  of  the  great  humorists  of  the  past  has  ever 
carried  ironic  art  to  a  higher  point  of  perfection. 


BROWNING  AS  A  HUMORIST  233 

Browning  is  sad  at  heart,  then?  Belief  in  life's 
essential  good  is  lost  to  him,  as  to  other  satir- 
ists? Like  other  realists,  he  finds  that  all  ideal 
is  mirage? 

" Subtlest  assertor  of  the  soul  in  song,"  he  is 
our  most  robust  of  optimists.  In  an  age  sorrow- 
ful-hearted and  timid,  his  verse  rings  forth  to  us 
with  a  clarion  note  of  cheer.  In  a  time  given 
to  gray  agnosticism,  he  smites  into  our  eyes  the 
light  of  faith.  Among  all  the  century's  children, 
he  is  the  great  proclaimer  of  belief  and  joy:  — 

"  I  find  Earth  not  gray,  but  rosy, 
Life  not  dull,  but  fair  of  hue. 
Do  I  stoop  ?     I  pluck  a  posy. 

Do  I  stop  and  stare  ?     All  's  blue."  1 

"Truth's  golden  o'er  us,  though  we  refuse  it," 
proclaims,  at  the  end  of  a  whimsical  poem,  the 
man  who  announced  with  a  shrug,  "We  called 
the  chessboard  black,  we  call  it  white."  He  who 
mourned  love  killed  by  convention,  rises  in  high 
lyric  rapture  to  the  faith  in  love  eternal,  spite  of 
shows  and  strife :  — 

"  No  !  love  which  on  earth,  amid  all  the  shows  of  it, 
Has  ever  been  known  the  sole  good  of  life  in  it ; 
That  love,  ever  growing  there,  spite  of  the  strife  in  it 
Shall  arise,  made  perfect,  from  Death's  repose  of  it."  2 

There  is  one  word  in  which  we  instinctively  sum 
up  the  life -worth  of  Robert  Browning :  — 

"  He  at  least  believed  in  Soul,  he  was  very  sure  of  God."  8 

1  At  the  Mermaid.  2  Christmas  Eve. 

8  La  Saisiaz. 


234  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

Our  greatest  modern  humorist  —  the  man  who 
sees  most  clearly  the  incongruities  of  life  —  is  our 
idealist  and  greatest  optimist  as  well.  Not  Tenny- 
Mephisto.  gon  nor  jjUgO  noi(js  with  so  superb,  mas- 
culine, unflinching  faith  to  the  essential  sacred- 
ness  of  life.  All  that  makes  for  cynicism,  all  that 
makes  for  despair,  is  comprehended  in  his  vision; 
but  "  God  is  it  that  transcends."  He  might  say 
with  Whitman :  — 

"  Roaming*  in  thought  over  the  Universe,  I  saw  the  little  that  is 
Good  steadily  hastening1  towards  immortality. 

And  the  vast  all  that  is  called  evil  I  saw  hastening  to  merge  itself 
and  become  lost  and  dead."  1 

Browning  has  achieved  the  final,  the  most  difficult 
of  all  reconciliations :  life  to  him  is  absurd,  but  it 
is  sacred  too. 

Yes!  Mephisto  and  the  idealist  are  bound  to- 
gether in  this  great  and  varied  soul,  and  the 
"perception  of  disparity,"  of  the  "detected  skulk- 
ing institutions,"  does  indeed  make  the  eyes  run 
over  with  laughter.  Yet  Mephisto  does  not  pre- 
vail, and  the  last  word  remains  for  once  with  the 
idealist.  Love  is  divine  and  shall  endure.  Truth 
is,  and  the  men  of  the  future  shall  behold  her. 
Luria's  dying  call  shows  the  soul  victorious  over 
diplomacy  and  doubt :  — 

"  If  we  could  wait !     The  only  fault 's  with  Time : 
All  men  become  good  creatures  —  but  so  slow." 

We  have  seen  that  the  very  theme  of  "The  Eing 
and  the  Book"  is  the  futility  of  human  judgment; 
yet  can  any  one  lay  down  the  epic  doubting  that, 

1  After  Reading  Hegel 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  235 

the  alloy  of  imagination  dispelled,  the  ring  of 
pure  golden  truth  lies  in  his  hand?  Confused 
are  earth's  voices,  false  its  surmises;  yet  a  Pom- 
pilia  stoops  over  us  perfect  in  whiteness,  a  Capon- 
sacchi  goes  forth  to  "work,  be  unhappy,  but  bear 
life,"  and  even  a  Guido  in  a  last  wild  appeal  rec- 
ognizes holiness  as  redemptive.  Finally,  a  Pope 
"sees  as  God  sees."  And  this,  which  is  the  func- 
tion of  the  highest  characters,  is  in  Browning's 
mind  the  function  of  the  poet  himself.  "All  is 
change,"  murmurs  the  earth-voice  of  Fifine;  — 
but  "All  is  permanence,"  rejoins  a  sky-whisper 
at  the  end.  In  this  conflict  of  shadows  to  look 
upward  towards  substantial  Light,  through  life's 
worst  paradoxes  to  discern  the  unity  of  Truth,  — 
this  is  the  task  he  sets  himself;  rather  this  is 
the  result  which  with  his  heaven-born  instinct  he 
attains.  Of  meditative  and  sorrowful  laughter 
we  find  our  fill  in  Browning;  but  the  laughter  is 
never  fiend-laughter,  for  it  is  never  directed  at 
the  noble  or  the  pure. 

And  not  only  does  the  idealist  win  the  final  tri- 
umph: we  cannot  help  wondering  whether  Me- 
phisto  may  not  be  his  friend  all  along.  The  two 
are  not  foes,  preserving  an  armed  neutrality;  they 
are  brothers  in  spirit,  as  even  Clough  discovered. 
For  it  is  this  world  of  paradox,  where  truth  is 
veiled  and  love  eludes,  which  affords,  to  Brown- 
ing's thought,  the  necessary  test  of  passion  and 
discipline  of  belief.  The  very  scoff,  if  we  analyze 
it,  turns  to  prayer  and  makes  for  faith.  Brown- 
ing's most  grotesque  studies,  in  all  their  wild 


236  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

power,  are  to  the  end  of  a  spiritual  revelation. 
Through  these  thick  exhalations  of  earthiness,  a 
celestial  light,  struggling  to  shine,  reveals  the  very 
forms  that  would  obscure  its  radiance.  See  Ned 
Bratts  and  Tabby,  lumpish,  physical,  horrible  crea- 
tures !  Convinced  of  sin,  righteousness,  and  judg- 
ment to  come,  trembling  with  awe,  contrition,  and 
spiritual  agony,  they  witness  better  than  the  fair- 
est saint  to  the  supreme  reality  of  soul.  Devotion 
to  truth  is  better  manifest  through  the  study  of 
Greek  particles  by  a  Grammarian  than  through 
the  study  of  the  starry  heavens  by  a  Galileo.  To 
create  a  new  astronomy,  the  world  may  well  be 
lost;  but  lose  it  to  "settle  '  Hoti's '  business," 
would  you  vindicate  idealism  forever. 

The  seeming  triumph  of  Mephisto  attains  its 
climax  in  the  outwardly  unbroken  cynicism  of  the 
last  great  poems.  Miranda's  compromise  between 
the  Blessed  Mary  and  his  mistress  Clara,  the  sub- 
tle buffoonery  of  Aristophanes,  the  casuistry  of 
Don  Juan,  weary  us  with  unflinching  sarcasm.  Yet 
these  very  poems  spring  from  a  superb  assurance. 
No  one  who  did  not  believe  robustly  in  the  good 
of  life  would  dare  to  write  them.  Browning's 
message  had  been  delivered  long  ago :  the  message 
of  "Saul,"  of  "Easter  Day,"  of  "A  Death  in  the 
Desert."  He  had  proclaimed  his  vision  of  the 
Absolute ;  he  was  free  to  turn  to  deviations  from 
true  sight,  to  study  the  faint  and  broken  gleams 
of  truth  that  shine  through  falsity  and  wrong. 
"Apologies  "  is  the  author's  chosen  name  for  these 
studies  in  spiritual  failure.  Only  a  man  who  be- 


BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST  237 

lieved  in  the  eternal  principles  of  solid  morality 
could  give  us  a  Miranda,  and  show  us  in  the  flicker- 
ing of  his  misguided  devotion  a  spark  of  the  true 
fire.  A  Hohenstiel  and  a  Blougram  confess  that  the 
world  is  not  theirs.  The  whole  tone  of  their  utter- 
ances is  a  defiant  excuse  for  intrusion  in  a  world 
which  after  all  belongs  not  to  the  diplomat  or  to 
the  doubter,  but  to  the  man  of  action  and  of  faith. 
It  is  because  truth  for  Browning  is  no  fragile, 
subjective  product,  but  an  eternal  reality,  that  he 
can  describe  for  us  with  ruthless  candor  the  blun- 
ders of  human  thought.  We  are  glad  indeed  to 
hear  in  "Asolando"  the  direct  and  ringing  words 
of  a  faith  that  faced  old  age  undaunted;  yet  even 
without  their  witness  we  should  have  known  full 
well  that  Browning  was  still  optimist  and  believer, 
and  that  the  poet  of  "Fifine  "  was  also  the  poet  of 
"Saul." 

Matthew  Arnold  tells  us  that  Wordsworth's 
power  was  to  "put  by"  "the  cloud  of  mortal  des- 
tiny." There  are  moods  when  we  are  grateful  to 
have  the  cloud  put  by.  There  are  others,  and  not 
our  lowest,  when  we  seek  one  who  can  teach  us  to 
live  in  the  cloud. 

The  poets  of  the  revolution  give  us  a  purist 
art,  and  such  art  can  never  completely  satisfy. 
High  and  permanent,  it  speaks  the  truth,  but  not 
the  full  truth;  and  our  ears  hearken  for  another 
voice.  But  the  voice  we  seek  is  not  that  of  the 
cynic,  and  the  man  who  pauses  in  life's  paradoxes 
will  not  utter  life's  final  word.  Thought  will  never 
be  satisfied  by  the  type  of  religion  which  with- 


238  BROWNING  AS  A   HUMORIST 

draws  from  the  knowledge  of  fact,  nor  by  the  type 
of  worldliness  which  denies  the  existence  of  truth. 

Browning  is  both  jester  and  prophet.  In  him 
alone,  among  the  Victorians,  art  frees  itself  entirely 
from  the  control  of  past  ideals  and  the  fear  of  the 
present,  and  yields  itself  audaciously  to  the  actual. 
His  broad  recognition  of  modern  fact  is  fused  with 
intense  sympathy  for  ideal  vision.  In  him,  the 
century  has  achieved  a  new  synthesis,  and  a  great 
humorist  is  for  once  a  great  believer. 


VI 

THE   POETRY   OF   SEARCH 

1.   Victorian  Poetry 

SHELLEY,  in  the  second  act  of  the  "Prometheus 
Unbound,"  tells  us  a  lovely  story  of  Asia,  his 
ideal  Lady,  awakened  by  the  voices  of  nature, 
summoned  by  dreams  of  redemption  and  progress 
to  a  pilgrimage  over  the  wide  earth.  Many  inter- 
pretations have  been  put  upon  this  delicate  myth. 
Perhaps  none  truer  could  be  found  than  that  which 
should  see  in  Asia  the  holy  Spirit  of  Imagination, 
and  in  her  mystical  wandering  the  Progress  of 
Poetry  through  the  modern  world.  Poetry,  like 
Asia,  had  long  been  lingering  dreamwise,  far  from 
the  heart  of  man.  Suddenly,  a  hundred  years  ago, 
she  beheld  in  the  eyes  of  Faith  the  image  of  a  free 
humanity;  then  the  vision  of  progress,  swift  and 
terrible,  passed  before  her  sight :  — 

' '  Its  rude  hair 

Roughens  the  wind  that  lifts  it :  its  regard 
Is  wild  and  quick."  l 

As  in  the  myth,  so  in  historic  fact,  nature,  long 
inert,  became  to  the  imagination  vocal  with  spirit- 
voices.  Thus  aroused  by  the  love  of  nature  and 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  II.  Scene  1. 


240  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

inspired  by  the  love  of  man,  poetry  entered  on  her 
great  journey  across  the  wastes  of  the  modern 
world.  Keats,  Wordsworth  and  Shelley  roamed 
past  lakes  and  heights  and  forests  faun -haunted, 
and  the  first  stages  of  the  journey  were  gloriously 
fair.  But  within  our  memories,  the  imagination 
has  descended  to  new  regions. 

"  Through  the  veil  and  bar 
Of  things  that  seem  and  are,"  * 

mighty  spiritual  forces  have  swept  her  downward, 
to  that  underworld  where  Demogorgon,  the  Power 
of  Reason,  holds  dark  and  secret  state.  Before 
this  gloom -clad  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of  light  and  love 
stands  and  questions.  Much  she  has  to  ask :  the 
origin  of  evil,  the  being  of  God,  the  hope  of  sal- 
vation. Asia  questioning  Demogorgon,  the  Ima- 
gination seeking  from  Reason  an  answer  to  the 
central  mysteries  —  here  is  the  image  of  poetry  in 
the  Victorian  age. 

During  fifty  years,  poetry  has  sojourned  in  a 
region  of  shadows,  meeting  the  problems  of  the 
spirit.  In  agony  and  in  perplexity  it  has  met 
them.  The  joyous  and  emotional  enthusiasm  with 
which  the  conception  of  a  redeemed  humanity  first 
filled  the  souls  of  the  poets,  has  passed  away;  it 
has  been  succeeded  by  an  intellectual  phase  of 
doubt  and  fear.  Face  to  face  the  Imagination 
has  seen  the  Power  of  Destruction  radiating  dark- 
ness, a  power  in  which  the  heart  of  faith  feels  but 
dimly  a  living  soul. 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  II.  Scene  3. 


VICTORIAN  POETRY  241 

Victorian  poetry  sprang  into  existence  in  the 
decade  between  1830  and  1840.  Since  the  death 
of  Keats  in  1821,  of  Shelley  in  1822,  of  ^ 
Byron  in  1824,  English  song  had  been  Conditions- 
stilled.  In  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  the  poet 
though  not  the  man  had  died.  With  Rogers  and 
Moore,  the  writers  of  the  hour,  poetry  had  sunk 
into  a  gentle  and  trivial  union  of  similes  and  senti- 
ments, adapted  to  the  drawing-room  and  the  harp. 
A  "  fragment"  called  "Pauline,"  issued  in  1833, 
and  two  collections  of  short  swallow -flights  of  song, 
issued  in  1830  and  1833,  are  known  to  us  now  as 
the  prelude  to  a  great  music. 

The  decade  in  which  young  Tennyson  and  Brown- 
ing began  to  write  was  one  of  immense  signifi- 
cance. At  its  beginning,  England  seemed  given 
over  to  convention;  before  its  end,  had  appeared 
every  tendency,  except  the  new  science,  which  was 
to  shape  the  world  we  know. 

Macaulay,  Brougham,  Sydney  Smith,  men  of 
the  present,  seem  to  fill  the  intellectual  horizon. 
They  recall  those  most  respectable  and  complacent 
phenomena:  Parliament,  the  Established  Church, 
and  the  "Edinburgh  Review."  Before  the  de- 
cade is  over,  Thackeray  and  Dickens  are  to  begin 
their  work,  flashing  upon  English  society  a  search- 
light keen  enough  to  destroy  complacency  forever. 
From  the  solitude  of  Scottish  moors,  a  book  is 
unobtrusively  sent  forth  called  "Sartor  Resartus," 
and  the  religious  and  social  movements  of  the 
Victorian  age  have  found  their  prophet.  Nor  is 
it  in  prophecy  alone  that  these  movements  are 


242  THE   POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

visible.  The  shapeless,  pathetic  agitation  of  Chart- 
ism shows  for  the  first  time  the  Samson  working- 
man  as  distinct  from  the  Bourgeois,  "feeling  for 
his  grip  on  the  pillars,"  and  hints  at  organized 
industrial  uprising,  and  the  struggle  for  social 
democracy.  The  social  renaissance  is  thus  omi- 
nously visible  in  retrospect ;  before  the  decade  was 
over  the  religious  renaissance,  in  varying  phases, 
absorbed  the  conscious  experience  of  the  day.  As 
the  revival  of  the  Catholic  ideal,  it  is  manifest  in 
Newman  and  the  Oxford  movement.  As  a  denial, 
perhaps  equally  religious  in  spirit,  of  all  Catholic 
tradition,  and  a  launching  out  into  unexplored  seas 
of  thought,  it  finds  its  earliest  and  far  from  least 
effective  exponent  in  the  young  John  Stuart  Mill. 
As  an  impulse  at  once  Christian  and  critical, 
seeking  the  synthesis  of  faith  and  freedom,  it  is 
foreshadowed  if  not  fully  manifest  in  the  early 
utterances  of  Frederick  Denison  Maurice,  in  the 
work  of  Arnold  of  Rugby,  and  in  the  wavering 
yet  still  lambent  light  which,  until  1834,  was  dif- 
fused from  the  home  of  Coleridge. 

Never  were  ten  years  more  full  of  vigorous 
promise.  In  1830  barriers  were  up  on  every 
side.  The  limits  of  passion  were  set  by  themes 
suitable  to  Lady  Holland's  dinner -table ;  the  limits 
of  politics  by  discussion  acceptable  to  the  House 
of  Commons ;  the  limits  of  speculation  by  questions 
sure  not  to  molest  the  thirty-nine  articles.  In 
1840,  all  inward  barriers  were  down.  The  spirit- 
ual life  of  England  had  been  quickened  from  the 
pulpit  of  St.  Mary's;  a  clear  though  half-articu- 


VICTORIAN  POETRY  243 

late  prophecy  of  the  uprising  of  the  People  had 
been  given  in  Chartism;  the  movement  towards 
scientific  and  positive  thought  had  been  inaugur- 
ated by  John  Stuart  Mill ;  and  modern  literature, 
both  prose  and  poetry,  had  suddenly  arisen  from  a 
seemingly  arid  soil.  It  was  the  birth-decade  of 
life  as  we  know  it,  the  -seed-time  of  the  modern 
world. 

Tennyson  and  Browning,  chief  among  the  Vic- 
torian poets,  appear  then  in  this  great  decade. 
Their  work,  wide  in  scope  and  massive  in 

.  The  Men. 

volume,  continues  to  the  end  01  the  cre- 
ative Victorian  epoch.  It  was  in  1889  that  the 
aspiration  of  Browning  in  "  Prospice"  was  granted, 
while  Tennyson,  in  1893,  passed  "  to  where  beyond 
these  voices  there  is  peace."  In  time  of  produc- 
tion, as  in  scope  of  achievement,  their  writing 
includes  all  the  work  of  the  minor  Victorian  poets. 
During  their  activity,  two  secondary  schools  have 
risen  and  decayed,  and  no  thought-attitude  charac- 
teristic of  a  lesser  poet  fails  to  find  some  expression 
in  the  elastic  work  of  the  greater  men. 

The  first  secondary  school  of  Victorian  poetry 
is  that  of  the  poets  of  doubt.  It  has  for  distinc- 
tive names  Matthew  Arnold  and  Arthur  Hugh 
Clough.  Clough  was  born  in  1819;  Arnold  in 
1821,  the  death-year  of  Shelley.  Their  poetic 
activity,  not  opening  till  1848,  is  concluded  in 
the  early  sixties,  while  Tennyson  and  Browning 
are  yet  in  their  first  prime. 

The  other  group,  more  than  ten  years  younger, 


244  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

is  that  of  the  poets  of  art.  Its  chief  names  are 
Rossetti,  Morris,  and  Swinburne.  Rossetti,  though 
born  in  1828,  did  not  publish  till  1870;  the  work 
of  Swinburne  and  Morris  is  subsequent  to  1858. 
The  poetic  activity  of  the  school  thus  coincides 
with  the  later  and  riper  work  of  the  leaders ;  and 
it  may  truly  be  said  to  ^e  held  within  their  achieve- 
ment. Rossetti  alone,  it  is  true,  passed  before 
them  into  silence;  biit  Morris  the  poet  died  long 
ago,  to  give  place  to  'the  prose-writer  and  social 
reformer,  while  Swinburne  for  some  time  has  given 
us  echoes  only,  hollow  though  sweet,  of  his  earlier 
song.  Forty  years,  then,  covered  the  appearance 
and  decadence  of  these  two  minor  schools  of  verse, 
while  the  large  and  placid  work  of  Tennyson  and 
Browning  took  all  but  sixty  years  for  rise,  devel- 
opment, and  fall. 

A  brooding  over  the  mysteries  of  the  spirit  is 

the  central  temper  of  all  these  diverse  schools;  a 

question   whether   the   spirit   be,   is  the 

The  Quest.       ^  ' 

shadow  that  rests  upon  them.  The  verse 
of  a  whole  period  has  never  been  at  once  so  abstruse 
yet  so  passionate.  The  scientific  spirit,  leading  men 
to  new  keenness  in  analysis  and  new  emphasis  on 
process,  has  shaped  this  poetry,  the  roaming  instinct 
that  explores  distant  regions  and  foreign  ideals  has 
guided  it ;  but  the  impulse  which  dominates  it  has 
been,  through  all  the  Victorian  age,  the  search  for 
truth. 

Or,  since  poetry  abhors  an  abstraction  more  than 
nature  a  vacuum,  may  we  not  change  the  phrase? 


VICTORIAN  POETRY  245 

Shall  we  be  far  wrong  in  saying  that  the  desire 
which  controls  the  Victorian  poets  of  England  is 
the  desire  for  God?  The  search  after  God  in- 
forms and  creates  the  work  of  Arnold  and  Clough ; 
it  is  the  central  motif  of  "The  King  and  the  Book  " 
as  truly  as  of  "In  Memoriam."  The  democratic 
ideal  controls  the  poets  of  the  revolution,  the 
religious  ideal  controls  the  Victorian  poets. 

Just  such  a  type  of  poetry  was  never  seen  be- 
fore. There  have  been  enough  poets  completely 
absorbed  as  any  of  these  later  days  in  the  life  of 
the  spirit,  and  treating  it  more  exclusively.  To 
Dante  as  to  our  own  Spenser  and  Milton,  all  facts 
of  earth  find  reality  only  as  symbols  of  the  soul's 
relation  to  God.  Nor  shall  we  ever  again  have 
deeper  insight  into  the  struggles  of  the  soul  than 
that  shown  by  these  great  masters.  But  whatever 
dark  and  mighty  problems  might  assail  them,  no 
question  of  the  existence  of  a  central  truth  invades 
their  minds.  Dante,  with  the  geography  of  Heaven 
and  Hell  at  his  finger-tips,  leads  us  with  unfal- 
tering steps  from  the  Limbo -twilight  through  the 
black  abyss  and  upward  to  the  Eose  of  the  Blessed 
bathed  in  light  supernal.  Spenser,  joyously  and 
serenely  confident  of  the  ideal  of  human  life,  weaves 
for  us,  with  threads  from  the  loom  of  classic  and 
feudal  past  and  a  warp  of  sweet  original  imagin- 
ings, his  definite  pattern  of  perfect  Christian  man- 
hood. Milton,  convinced  that  he  holds  entire  the 
divine  truth  formulated  in  a  scheme  of  theology, 
sets  forth  deliberately,  in  resounding  verse,  "to 
justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man."  The  eighteenth 


246  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

century,  at  once  less  assured  and  less  concrete, 
begins  to  inquire  and  philosophize  in  verse;  but 
its  politely  inquisitive  temper  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  the  agonized  and  solemn  spirit  in  which 
the  men  of  later  days  have  sought  the  revelation 
of  the  truth.  Great  poetry  in  all  previous  times 
has  moved  to  the  music  of  assurance;  ours,  for 
the  first  time,  moves  to  the  music  of  doubt. 

Men  enough  there  have  beeir,  indeed,  in  earlier 
times,  to  whom  the  light  of  the  unseen  world  was 
veiled,  and  the  very  being  of  God  unrevealed. 
But  we  can  only  infer  what  pain  may  have  moved 
restlessly  at  the  heart  of  these  mighty  sons  of  the 
earth.  Their  work  turns  aside  from  futile  inquiry 
and  the  analysis  of  shadows,  to  interpret  .the  large, 
positive,  illumined  human  life  around.  For  Shake- 
speare, as  for  many  of  us  moderns,  this  little  life 
is  rounded  to  a  sleep,  and  the  rest  is  silence.  Yet 
even  so,  Shakespeare  found  this  earth  a  good  place 
and  a  noble,  well  worthy  all  the  pain  incident  to 
its  children;  for  the  poet  of  "The  Tempest"  had 
the  strong  conviction,  mysteriously  lost  to  us,  that 
human  life  is  an  end  in  itself,  even  though  it  lead 
nowhither.  To  the  imagination  of  the  modern 
world,  the  spirit  is  supreme,  and  without  it  the 
earth  profiteth  nothing;  yet  too  often  the  spirit, 
veiled,  eludes  our  quest  and  the  beauty  of  dust 
mocks  our  desires. 

The  search  for  Truth,  the  search  for  God  —  to 
follow  the  modern  poets  upon  this  pilgrimage  is 
to  understand  in  large  measure  the  spiritual  move- 
ment of  the  Victorian  age. 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  247 

2.   The  Poets  of  Doubt 

There  is  no  Victorian  poet,  perhaps  there  is 
no  Victorian  thinker,  more  significant  in  position 
than  Matthew  Arnold.  Agnosticism  of  Matthew 
thought  and  feeling,  with  all  its  vague-  Arnold' 
ness,  finds  in  him  an  exquisitely  accurate  exponent. 
No  other  poet  has  been  so  clear  in  his  understand- 
ing of  confusion,  so  positive  in  an  unstable  equili- 
brium. In  the  union  of  definiteness  of  technique 
with  vagueness  of  theme  the  charm  of  his  work 
resides.  Unsatisfied  desire,  evasive  regret,  indeci- 
sion, doubt,  all  that  has  not  yet  translated  itself 
from  the  dim  twilight  of  the  feeling  to  the  daylight 
world  of  the  deed,  —  this  Arnold  gives  us  with  del- 
icate precision  of  touch.  His  poems  are  like  gray 
shadows  cast  along  some  temple -floor,  shadowy 
alike  in  clean  purity  of  outline,  and  in  dim  uncer- 
tainty of  content. 

Death  restores  all  values.  During  Arnold's 
lifetime,  his  keen,  graceful,  and  versatile  prose 
tended  somewhat  to  eclipse  his  grave  and  quiet 
poetry.  But  no  sooner  did  he  leave  us  than  the 
hold  of  his  poems  on  the  heart  of  the  age  was 
manifest.  The  brilliant  critic,  the  Apostle  of  Cul- 
ture, is  already  less  distinct  to  the  eyes  of  memory. 
As  he  vanishes,  to  many  of  us  there  appears  in  his 
place  another  figure  —  a  younger  Arnold,  of  mourn- 
ful, clear,  and  searching  glance,  and  firm  lips 
which  vainly  try  to  repress  their  emotion.  The 
author  of  "Literature  and  Dogma"  gives  way  to 


248  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

the  author  of  "Empedocles  on  2Etna;"  the  critic 
and  the  would-be  theologian  grow  dim  before  the 
poet. 

What  will  be  the  respective  value  assigned  to 
Arnold's  prose  and  verse  by  the  stern  criticism  of 
time,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  To  a  certain  degree 
they  reflect  the  same  tendencies.  But  these  ten- 
dencies in  the  prose  receive  a  purely  intellectual 
embodiment,  hence  they  remain  inert  and  cold. 
In  the  poetry  they  are  fused  with  deep  emotional 
ardor  and  translated  into  pure  artistic  beauty. 
His  poems  do  not,  indeed,  possess  that  universal- 
ity of  touch  which  is  the  mark  of  the  greatest 
poets;  but  they  possess  something  only  less  rare 
—  a  sympathetic  insight  into  certain  phases  of 
individual  experience,  and  a  rendering  of  these 
phases  so  delicately  clear  that  it  interprets  the 
soul  to  itself,  and  by  illuminating  strengthens. 

But  Arnold's  whole  poetic  achievement  is  con- 
tained in  two  slender  volumes.  In  the  very  zenith 
of  his  powers  he  abandoned  poetry  and  betook 
himself  to  prose.  It  seems  difficult  to  believe  that 
a  man  in  whom  the  imaginative  power  was  clear 
and  strong  could  deliberately  suppress  it  and  turn 
from  creation  to  criticism.  Not  thus  has  it  been 
with  our  great  poets,  who,  possessed  by  a  force 
higher  than  themselves,  were  swept  along  by  it 
to  the  end  of  life  or  strength;  and  we  inevita- 
bly ask  ourselves,  Could  the  fire  be  intense  and 
clear  which  so  swiftly  burned  itself  out  ?  Can  the 
man  who  seems  to  have  tossed  his  inspiration  away 
so  lightly  and  contented  himself  with  the  dead 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  249 

level  of  prose,  ever  have  known  real  inspiration 
ataU? 

Thus  this  poetry  challenges  us  at  once  with  an 
initial  paradox.  It  is  not  the  only  paradox  we 
shall  meet  if  we  try  to  analyze  Arnold's  mournful 
power.  We  may  find  comprehension  easier  if  we 
glance  for  a  moment  at  the  temper  and  the  condi- 
tions of  his  life. 

Arnold's  was  not  a  traditional  poetic  career. 
The  first  of  the  century  accustomed  us  to  an  ele- 
ment of  romantic  irregularity  in  the  lives  of  our 
poets.  Shelley's  wistful  and  disastrous  efforts  to 
live  in  the  matter-of-fact  world  the  life  of  dream- 
land, Byron's  rebellious  and  picturesque  career, 
and  in  no  less  degree  the  remote  serenity  wherein 
were  passed  the  days  of  Wordsworth,  —  we  find 
in  all  these  something  distinctive,  apart  from 
the  average  life  of  humdrum  men.  But  Arnold's 
life  was  passed  completely  in  the  world:  conven- 
tional, well-ordered,  immersed  in  questions  of  the 
day,  acquiescing  in  the  traditions  of  society.  His 
individuality  was  receptive  rather  than  assertive. 
He  did  not  guide  his  age,  he  was  moulded  by  it; 
not,  indeed,  by  the  lower  phases,  from  which  he 
separated  himself  in  voiceful  scorn,  nor  by  the 
material  activities,  from  which  he  remained  aloof 
in  sad  remoteness,  but  by  the  intellectual  and 
moral  influences  which  from  childhood  up  sur- 
rounded him.  To  these  he  was  most  sensitively  re- 
sponsive. True,  he  became  in  later  life  an  exact 
exponent  of  no  one  school  of  thought;  and  this 
because  of  his  very  responsiveness.  He  could 


250  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

utterly  reject  no  influence  which  reached  him:  in 
a  measure  he  reflected  them  all. 

The  first  strong  influence  under  which  Arnold 
fell  was  that  of  his  father  at  Kugby.  Dr.  Ar- 
nold's training,  admirable  though  it  was,  doubtless 
stimulated  to  unwholesome  precocity  the  moral 
and  religious  instincts.  The  boys  were  plunged 
with  the  first  dawn  of  consciousness  into  modern 
brooding  over  personal  moral  problems.  At  the 
same  time  the  intellectual  convictions  fostered  in 
them  were  those  of  the  Broad  Church  —  liberal 
and  somewhat  vague.  From  Rugby,  Arnold  went 
to  Oxford.  Here  he  found  the  same  temper  of 
spiritual  analysis  intensified,  and  united  to  intel- 
lectual convictions  the  exact  reverse  of  those  he 
had  known.  The  Tractarian  movement  was  at  its 
height.  Sunday  after  Sunday  the  tender  voice  of 
Newman  sounded  in  his  ears  with  unearthly  plead- 
ing; the  noble  and  gracious  figure  of  Pusey  was 
before  him;  the  air  around  was  full  of  deep  and 
genuine  Christianity,  which  thought  itself  identi- 
cal with  the  ecclesiasticism  of  the  Anglican  Church. 
The  change  from  Rugby  to  Oxford  must  have  been 
bewildering  indeed  to  a  thoughtful  boy.  The  same 
spirit  of  Christian  ardor  he  found  in  two  parties 
utterly  antagonistic.  What  could  it  mean?  One 
solution  was  obvious.  The  boy  drifted  towards  it 
with  many  questionings  and  much  sorrow  —  the 
man  adopted  it.  Differing  elements  neutralized 
each  other.  Dogma  vanished;  the  permanent  fac- 
tor —  the  spirit  of  sweetness  and  light  —  alone  re- 
mained. This  was  the  necessary  end  with  a  tern- 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  251 

perament  rather  the  passive  meeting-ground  of 
contending  forces  than  a  vigorous  actor  siding 
with  one  party  in  the  fight.  But  the  end  —  per- 
haps an  unstable  compromise  at  best  —  was  not 
attained  without  bitterness,  pain,  and  doubt.  The 
struggle  reflects  itself  in  Arnold's  poetry.  Much 
else  he  gained  from  his  Oxford  years :  an  exquisite 
courtesy,  a  deep  love  for  the  culture  of  the  past, 
a  breadth  of  manner.  These  traits,  in  the  best 
Oxford  men  of  the  day,  played  over  the  surface  of 
burning  and  intense  conviction;  in  the  poems  of 
Arnold  they  play  with  equal  grace  over  the  sur- 
face of  negation,  questioning,  and  pain. 

After  leaving  Oxford,  Arnold  came  in  sharp 
contact  with  the  wave  of  scientific  Agnosticism 
which  was  sweeping  over  England.  He  was  never 
overwhelmed  by  it.  From  much  in  its  attitude  he 
shrank;  with  several  of  its  leaders  he  waged  an 
urbane  feud.  Yet  we  may  trace  throughout  his 
work  the  effect  of  the  movement,  in  play  with  other 
forces.  Thus  living  the  life  of  the  scholar  and 
the  thinker,  both  in  and  of  the  world,  able  rather 
to  reproduce  and  to  combine  than  to  originate, 
Arnold  reflects  for  us  with  singular  truthfulness 
the  composite  and  conflicting  tendencies  which 
marked  the  second  third  of  the  century. 

We  shall  obviously  expect  in  his  poetry  an  intel- 
lectual and  ethical  bias.  It  will  be  introspective, 
self -searching,  deficient  in  external  movement ;  for 
the  age  does  not  thirst  for  objective  adventure :  our 
passion  is  of  the  soul,  not  the  deed;  our  tumult 
within,  not  without.  But  Arnold  has  given  us  an 


252  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

explicit  and  elaborate  theory  of  poetry,  and  it  is 
in  flat  contradiction  to  our  expectations.  He  tells 
us,  with  his  usual  serene  assurance,  that  the  only 
legitimate  subjects  of  poetry  are  actions,  noble  ac- 
tions ;  and  that  all  true  poetry  must  appeal  to  the 
primary  and  permanent  affections. 

Vigorously  he  has  tried  to  carry  out  his  theory. 
In  "Sohrab  and  Eustum"  and  "Balder  Dead"  he 
has  worked  carefully  after  the  best  classic  models. 
Noble  and  objective  in  theme,  simply  straightfor- 
ward in  treatment,  these  poems  almost  attain  true 
epic  grandeur.  Yet  the  saving  word  remains. 
Despite  the  felicity  of  phrasing  and  cadence,  de- 
spite the  breadth  of  handling  and  the  profoundly 
touching  nature  of  the  stories,  it  is  not  by  these 
poems  that  Arnold  holds  his  place  in  our  hearts. 
Rather  is  it  by  such  verses  as  "Dover  Beach"  or 
the  "Summer  Night,"  or  the  haunting  music  of 
"  The  Buried  Life  "  —  poems  which  burn  themselves 
into  the  memory  by  their  subtle  introspective 
power,  which  portray  the  sadness  of  the  soul  torn 
asunder  by  conflicting  forces,  and,  in  the  rush 
and  whirl  of  life,  unable  to  find  the  centre  whence 
it  shall  react  upon  the  world.  And  if  these,  his 
characteristic  poems,  have  in  them  no  hint  of  ac- 
tion, they  are  equally  removed  from  ^reflecting  the 
primary  or  the  permanent  emotions.  They  re- 
flect the  questioning  spirit  of  a  transitional  age; 
no  primitive  or  simple  soul  has  sung  them,  but 
a  nature  sensitive  with  most  elaborate  culture. 
Fancy  the  bewilderment  of  Dan  Chaucer,  the  dis- 
gust of  one  of  our  New  England  farmers,  did 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  253 

fate  force  him  to  follow  the  subtle  disquisitions  of 
Empedocles  on  JEtna!  They  are  of  the  present, 
these  poems,  and  even  in  the  present  they  appeal 
to  a  limited  class.  Here  our  second  paradox 
meets  us.  With  all  the  power  of  his  conscious 
art  Arnold  has  tried  to  square  his  work  with  his 
conception  and  to  reproduce  the  direct  and  uncon- 
scious poetry  of  the  past;  but  the  remoteness  of 
his  theory  only  enhances  the  significance  of  his 
practice.  The  age  is  too  strong  for  him  —  the  age 
and  his  own  soul;  they  force  him  to  a  poetry 
which  is  for  the  few,  not  the  many;  of  the  pres- 
ent, not  of  eternity;  of  thought,  not  act. 

And  for  us  to-day,  the  very  power  of  these 
poems  consists  in  their  intensely  modern  tone. 
Whether  they  will  retain  their  charm  when  the 
phases  which  they  reflect  are  matters  no  longer  of 
experience  but  of  history,  is  hard  to  say ;  yet  we 
cannot  conceive  their  passing  into  oblivion;  for 
they  are  rendered  with  artistic  workmanship  and 
inspiration  of  a  high  order,  and  art  is  eternal, 
though  the  embodied  emotion  become  sympathetic 
rather  than  direct.  We  have  little  in  common 
to-day  with  the  theology  of  Milton  or  of  ^Eschy- 
lus,  yet  the  world  does  not  forget  the  Paradise 
Lost  or  the  Prometheus  Bound.  May  we  not  hope 
d  like  fate  for  the  work  of  Arnold? 

In  any  study  of  this  poetry  one  must,  indeed, 
pause  long  with  delight  over  the  purely  artistic 
qualities.  They  possess,  to  begin  with,  one  neces- 
sary mark  of  a  great  poet  —  they  are  distinctive. 
One  cannot  hear  the  merest  touch  from  one  of 


254      THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

Arnold's  finer  poems  without  recognizing  the  au- 
thor :  — 

"  The  day  in  his  hotness, 
The  strife  with  the  palm, 
The  night  in  her  silence, 
The  stars  in  their  calm." l 

"  And  with  joy  the  stars  perform  their  shining, 
And  the  sea  its  long  moon-silvered  roll."  2 

They  are  as  individual  as  Shakespeare's 

"  And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death  ; "  — 

or  Milton's 

"  That  undisturbed  song  of  pure  concent, 
Aye  sung  before  the  sapphire-color'd  throne." 

This  originality  of  Arnold  is  strongly  empha- 
sized in  the  very  metres  which  he  chooses.  His 
ordinary  lyrical  movements  are  simple  and  clear, 
he  avoids  the  involved  sonorous  and  elaborate 
schemes  dear  to  the  soul  of  Swinburne  or  Rossetti ; 
but  he  much  affects  a  peculiar  structure,  seem- 
ingly lawless,  yet  in  reality  governed  by  the  melody 
of  a  constant  foot.  Such  poems  as  "The  For- 
saken Merman"  or  "The  Future"  have  in  their 
swaying  cadences  a  weird  and  haunting  music  not 
easily  forgotten.  Only  a  sure  hand  could  venture 
on  these  irregular  movements,  which  combine  the 
charm  of  apparent  spontaneity  with  a  singular  and 
perfect  control. 

Not  for  him  is  the  dim  suggestion,  which  clings 
as  a  glorified  and  prismatic  halo  about  the  poems 

1  Interlude  to  Empedocles  on 

2  Self-Dependence. 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  255 

of  Rossetti.  The  verse  of  Arnold  is  bathed  in 
tranquil  light.  Each  detail  is  rendered  with  the 
delicate  precision  of  sympathy;  and  in  time  this 
simple  and  unswerving  truthfulness,  this  selection 
untinged  by  passion,  comes  to  hold  us  with  a  firm- 
ness peaceful  and  grave.  The  absence  of  side- 
lights is  perhaps  the  reason  that  Arnold's  poetry 
is  often  counted  cold,  yet  the  chiseled  purity  of 
his  outlines  has  an  indescribable  and  touching 
power  of  its  own.  He  concentrates  a  vision  in  an 
epithet.  The  effect  which  in  another  poet  would 
occupy  two  or  three  lines,  he  conveys  in  one  felici- 
tous light-flashing  compound. 

"  Ye  storm-winds  of  Autumn, 
Who  rush  by,  who  shake 
The  window,  and  ruffle 

The  gleam-lighted  lake  !  "  1 

exclaims  the  lover;  and  the  whole  sheet  of  steely 
water  is  before  us.  The  poet  speaks  of  the  voice 
of  Marguerite,  and  we  feel  the  very  spirit  of  Eng- 
lish country :  — 

"  Say,  has  some  wet  bird-haunted  English  lawn 
Lent  it  the  music  of  its  trees  at  dawn  ?  "  2 

Or  we  have  the  aspect  of  the  twilight  ocean :  — 

"  We  bathed  our  hands  with  speechless  glee 
That  night,  in  the  wide-glimmering  sea."  3 

Arnold  has  a  strong  preference  for  certain  spe- 
cial aspects  in  nature.  He  turns  instinctively  to 
the  steadfast  and  the  cool.  A  fresh  air  with 
something  of  the  sting  of  early  morning  blows 

1  Switzerland.  2  Ibid. 

8  Resignation.     To  Fausta. 


256  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

through  his  pages.  Never  was  there  such  a  poet 
for  hot  weather.  Fancy  the  refreshment,  in  a 
midsummer  noon,  of  reading  lines  like  these :  — 

"  Sand-strewn  caverns,  cool  and  deep, 
Where  the  winds  are  all  asleep, 
Where  the  spent  lights  quiver  and  gleam, 
Where  the  salt  weed  sways  in  the  stream, 
Where  the  sea-beasts,  ranged  all  round, 
Feed  in  the  ooze  of  their  pasture-ground, 
Where  the  sea-snakes  coil  and  twine, 
Dry  their  mail,  and  bask  in  the  brine  ; 
Where  great  whales  come  sailing  by, 
Sail  and  sail  with  unshut  eye 
Round  the  world  forever  and  aye."  1 

If  in  the  scene  there  mingles  a  note  of  austerity, 
the  power  of  the  poet  grpws  more  assured.  There 
are  few  more  wonderful  passagesxthan  that  study 
of  the  Grande  Chartreuse  where  all  surroundings 
reflect  the  frigid  solemnity  of  the  inner  life :  — 

"  The  silent  courts,  where  night  and  day 

Into  their  stone-carved  basins  cold 
The  splashing  icy  fountains  play, 

The  humid  corridors  behold  — 
Where  ghost-like  in  the  deepening  night 
Cowl'd  forms  brush  by  in  gleaming  white. 

"  The  chapel  where  no  organ's  peal 

Invests  the  stern  and  naked  prayer ! 
With  penitential  cries  they  kneel 

And  wrestle  ;  rising  then,  with  bare 
And  white  uplifted  faces  stand, 
Passing  the  host  from  hand  to  hand."  2 

Arnold's  attitude  towards  nature  is  distinctive. 
He  never,  like  Shelley,  ascribes  to  natural  forces, 

1  The  Forsaken  Merman. 

2  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse. 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  257 

to  wind  and  bird  and  river,  the  emotions  of  his 
own  restless  soul ;  yet  he  never  loses  the  conscious- 
ness of  self.  He  has  no  part  in  the  contemplative 
and  impersonal  rapture  of  Wordsworth.  Never 
for  a  moment  can  he  identify  himself  with  the  joy 
of  the  blossom,  merge  his  own  life  till  thought 
expires  in  the  glory  of  the  rising  sun.  He  re- 
mains aloof,  an  unimpassioned  spectator;  noting 
with  tender  truthfulness  every  detail,  but  feeling 
keenly  that  between  his  life  and  the  life  of  nature 
there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  Of  the  passion  and 
wild  joy  of  the  natural  world,  indeed,  he  is  hardly 
conscious  ;  it  is  the  grandeur  of  accomplished 
Duty,  of  unflinching  obedience  to  Law,  which 
constitute  for  him  the  glory  of  ocean  and  river  and 
mountain.  Thus  severe,  steadfast,  and  grand  are 
the  aspects  that  he  renders.  He  is  the  poet  of  the 
sea  —  the  sea,  with  its  infinite  yet  obedient  free- 
dom, with  its  freshness  and  its  calm.  He  is  the 
poet  of  the  moonlight,  of  the  tranquil  and  un- 
clouded heaven  suffused  with  a  radiance  clearer 
than  that  of  day.  He  is  above  all  the  poet  of  the 
high  mountains.  Not  even  Shelley  nor  Words- 
worth has  rendered  like  him  their  majesty;  the 
fullness  of  mysterious  suggestion  in  the  Romantic 
writers  could  ill  convey  purity  so  august  and  so 
serene.  But  Arnold,  with  his  constant  tone  of 
remoteness,  has  perfectly  recorded  the  isolated 
grandeur  of  the  hills  —  that  grandeur  terrestrial, 
not  celestial,  yet  possessing  an  eternal  strength,  an 
immutable  and  untainted  glory.  Again  and  again 
does  Arnold  instinctively  turn  to  the  mountains. 


258  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

The  lover  tossed  by  the  hot  storms  of  passion 
hears  above  them  all  the  murmured  summons  of 
the  untouched  heights;  the  soul  exhausted  by  the 
struggles  of  the  revolution,  flees  for  refuge  to  the 
solitude  of  those  pastures,  which  yet  cannot  re- 
lease it  from  its  individual  pain :  — 

"  Yes,  though  the  virgin  mountain-air 
Fresh  through  these  pages  blows, 
Though  to  these  leaves  the  glaciers  spare 
The  soul  of  their  mute  snows ; 

"  Though  here  a  mountain  murmur  swells 

Of  many  a  dark-boughed  pine  ; 
Though  as  you  read,  you  hear  the  bells 
Of  the  high-pasturing  kine ; 

"  Yet  through  the  hum  of  torrent  lone 

And  brooding  mountain-bee, 
There  sobs  I  know  not  what  ground-tone 
Of  human  agony." 1 

Here  an  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  soul  and  the  world;  but  often  Arnold 
gives  us  perfect  pictures  in  which  the  ethical  sug- 
gestion is  so  delicate  that  it  is  hardly  felt :  — 

"Thin,  thin  the  pleasant  human  noises  grow, 

And  faint  the  city  gleams ; 
Rare  the  lone  pastoral  huts  —  marvel  not  thou, 
The  solemn  peaks  but  to  the  stars  are  known, 
But  to  the  stars,  and  the  cold  lunar  beams ; 
Alone  the  sun  arises,  and  alone 

Spring  the  great  streams."  2 

This  self-sufficing  calm,  remote  from  the  pas- 

1  Stanzas  in  Memory  of  the  Author  of  Obermann,  November, 
1849. 

2  In  Utrumque  Paratus. 


/ 

njNiV 

THE  POETS   6F  DOUBT  259 

sions  and  interests  of  man,  is  felt  throughout 
Arnold's  pellucid  interpretation  of  Nature.  £:He 
sees  in  her  no  mere  mirror  of  human  experience ; 
she  is  to  him  a  perpetual  example  and  a  silent 
reproach.  To  man's  restlessness  she  opposes  peace ; 
to  his  passion,  an  impersonal  coolness ;  to  his  wild 
and  ungoverned  license,  the  steadfastness  of  per- 
fect obedience.  In  contemplating  her  the  poet 
does  not  find  a  wild  inspiration  nor  an  uplifting 
joy;  but  he  does  find  a  refuge  and  refreshment  in 
weariness,  and,  higher  yet,  a  stern  and  moral 
power :  — 

"  Still  do  thy  sleepless  ministers  move  on, 
Their  glorious  tasks  in  silence  perfecting1, 
Still  working,  blaming  still  our  vain  turmoil, 
Laborers  that  shall  not  fail  when  man  is  gone." l 

It  is  a  "starting,  feverish  heart"  that  Arnold 
brings  to  this  high  peace  —  a  heart  that  cannot  bury 
itself  indifferently  in  the  past,  and  yet  feels  itself,, 
with  sad  disgust,  an  alien  from  the  present  and 
the  actual.  The  rush  and  heat  and  blatant  mate- 
rialism of  the  age  fill  Arnold  with  scornful  pain :  — 

"  We  see  all  sights  from  pole  to  pole, 
And  glance  and  nod  and  hurry  by, 
And  never  once  possess  our  soul 
Before  we  die."  2 

Such  is  his  exclamation.  In  the  midst  of  his  dis- 
satisfaction he  turns  wistfully  to  the  calm  stead- 
fastness of  nature;  he  turns  with  equal  yearning 
to  the  faith  and  life  of  the  past,  in  which  he  sees 
an  assurance  and  a  peace  that  can  never  return 

1  Sonnet :  Quiet  Work.  2  A  Southern  Night. 


260  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

again.  Through  all  his  poems  there  runs,  in 
mournful  and  touching  undertone,  a  note  of  deep 
regret.  His  sympathetic  insight  into  many  phases 
of  past  thought  has  often  proved  perplexing  to  his 
readers.  Himself  no  Christian,  he  wrote  most 
tenderly  and  wistfully  of  the  early  Christian  days. 
Most  modern  of  moderns,  he  identified  himself  in 
a  common  loss  with  the  strictest  mediaeval  order. 
He  reproduced  for  us,  with  a  heart  on  flame,  the 
cold  and  statuesque  nobility  of  the  Hellenic  world. 
To  all  this  paradox  the  answer  stands  plain.  He 
turned  back  yearningly  to  each  and  all  of  these 
phases;  for  in  all  alike  he  found  what  he  missed 
and  lamented  in  himself  —  a  faith  that  was  clear 
and  a  life  that  was  serene.  We  are  impelled  to 
apply  to  him  his  own  lines  on  his  master,  Ober- 
mann :  — 

' '  Again  I  hear  the  words  inspire 

Their  mournful  calm  :  serene, 
Yet  tinged  with  infinite  desire 
For  all  that  might  have  been." l 

In  this  desire  for  "what  might  have  been," 
Arnold  is  not  alone.  In  a  measure  he  reflects  us 
all.  There  are  none  who  fail  to  realize  with  sad- 
ness the  flux  in  which  all  that  seemed  most  stable, 
from  the  traditions  of  the  social  order  to  the  con- 
ception of  the  unseen,  has  been  carried  away. 
But  keenly  though  we  may  enjoy  Arnold's  delicate 
voicing  of  a  universal  pain,  we  cannot  rest  con- 
tented if  he  gives  us  nothing  more.  No  man  can 
spend  his  entire  strength  in  regret.  What  com- 

1  Obermann  Once  More. 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  261 

fort  does  he  bring  us,  and  wherein  are  his  sources 
of  life? 

His  strength  is  largely  negative.  There  is  no 
militant  element  in  his  attitude.  To  conquer  evil, 
to  reform  abuses,  is  not  for  him.  To  him,  as  to 
Hamlet,  "the  world  is  out  of  joint;"  but  he  is 
troubled  with  no  grievous  fear  that  he  was  born 
"to  set  it  right."  Vaguely  he  dreams  of  a  hap- 
pier future :  there  may  be,  must  be,  men  who  by 
their  struggles  shall  create  it;  but  the  task  is  not 
his.  His  rather  the  silent  desert,  whence  he  may 
watch  the  pomp  of  life  pass  by,  and  in  mournful 
peace  wait  the  event. 

"  There  yet,  perhaps,  may  dawn  an  age, 
More  fortunate,  alas,  than  we, 
Which  without  hardness  may  be  sage, 
And  gay  without  frivolity. 
Sons  of  the  world,  oh,  haste  those  years ; 
But  while  we  wait,  allow  our  tears."1 

Yet  tears  are  not  the  only  refuge  for  the  doubt- 
ing and  unhappy  spirit,  even  while  it  waits  passive 
for  the  sons  of  the  present  world  to  work  towards 
the  coming  day.  Arnold  cannot  goad  us  on  to 
active  and  joyous  effort;  his  own  hopelessness  is 
too  deep  for  that.  But  without  resistance  he  will 
not  leave  his  soul  to  suffer.  He  meets  his  feverish 
doubt,  his  vague  unrest,  with  a  stern  and  distinct 
message.  It  is  the  message  of  repression.  His 
subtle  discontent  he  strives  to  stifle.  He  preaches 
a  noble  courage,  a  self-contained  fortitude;  but 
it  is  the  courage  of  resignation,  -not  of  activity. 

1  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse. 


262  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

Better  never  aspire  than  to  strive  and  fall.  Our 
finer,  vaguer  instincts  can  never  be  fulfilled ;  they 
cause  us  pain,  and  pain  is  weakness.  Let  the 
instincts  be  crushed.  Let  us  model  our  lives  after 
the  calm  and  quiet  completeness  of  natural  law; 
thus  may  we  reach,  if  not  the  glorious  serenity  of 
the  elder  world,  yet  the  noble  poise  which  results 
from  a  symmetry  perfect  though  sad. 

Tranquillity  and  self-sufficient  strength  —  these 
would  seem  to  be  Arnold's  highest  aim.  That 
there  was  a  time  when  they  were  not  so  we  must 
infer.  "Calm's  not  life's  crown,  though  calm  is 
well!"  he  exclaims  in  an  early  lyric.  But  when 
his  powers  were  at  their  prime,  we  find  no  hint  of 
an  ideal  other  than  symmetry  gained  by  repression 
and  self-control.  Perfect  is  the  unity  which,  in 
this  respect,  pervades  his  work.  We  have  seen 
how  largely  the  artistic  charm  of  metre  and  method 
consisted  in  severe  restraint.  The  severity  of 
phrase  is  equaled  by  the  severity  of  mood.  In 
Arnold's  few  love-poems  the  theme  is  always  sac- 
rifice. The  heart  flees  the  tumultuous  passion, 
which  weakens  or  degrades  its  self-centred  strength ; 
the  lover  plunges  into  solitude :  — 

"  I  struggle  towards  the  light :  and  ye, 

Once  longed-for  storms  of  love, 
If  with  the  light  ye  cannot  be, 
I  bear  that  ye  remove."  1 

The  same  tone  is  felt  through  all  his  treatment 
of  religious  unrest  and  social  discontent.  All 
which  agitates  and  excites  is  to  be  abjured;  all 

1  Switzerland. 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  263 

beginnings  of  which  the  end  is  withheld  shall  be 
rejected. 

And  verily  if  the  gospel  of  repression  be  true ; 
if  a  resolute  satisfaction  in  the  attainable,  in  the 
finite  conditions  of  human  life,  be  the  only  rational 
ideal;  if  Stoicism,  in  short,  is  the  only  genuine 
gospel  that  the  world  has  seen,  —  then,  indeed,  we 
can  ask  nothing  nobler  than  this  ideal  of  Arnold. 
Our  minds  must  thrill  in  acquiescence,  as  well  as 
in  sympathy,  with  his  Pagan  philosopher :  — 

"  Is  it  so  light  a  thing 

To  have  enjoyed  the  sun, 
To  have  lived  light  in  the  Spring, 

To  have  loved,  to  have  thought,  to  have  done, 
To  have  advanced  true  friends  and  beat  down  baffling  foes, 

"  That  we  must  feign  a  bliss 
Of  doubtful  future  date, 
And,  while  we  dream  on  this, 

Lose  all  our  present  state, 
And  relegate  to  worlds  yet  distant  our  repose  ? 

"  I  say,  fear  not !     Life  still 

Leaves  human  effort  scope. 
But,  since  life  teems  with  ill, 

Nurse  no  extravagant  hope  ; 
Because  thou  must  not  dream,  thou  needst  not  then  despair." l 

The  life  self-contained  and  self-sufficient,  de- 
manding no  tribute  from  without,  torn  by  no 
eager  passion  to  soar  freely  and  break  through  the 
limits  of  natural  law,  has  never  been  sung  with 
nobility  so  musical  and  so  austere.  A  cold,  self- 
centred,  barren  ideal  we  may  call  this  when  we 
view  it  baldly,  disenthralled  from  the  melodious 

1  Empedocles  on  ^Etna. 


264  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

and  melancholy  charm  which  the  poet  wreathes 
around.  Yet  it  has  a  greatness  of  its  own.  To 
many  it  seems,  in  its  confessed  sadness,  nobler, 
because  truer,  than  that  later  attitude  adopted  by 
the  great  critic,  when  he  refused  to  admit  the 
necessity  of  sacrifice,  and  endeavored,  in  the  glow 
of  his  own  emotions  divorced  from  intellectual 
faith,  to  find  sufficient  inspiration  for  a  life  that 
denied  its  own  despair.  In  his  poems  he  is  at 
least  sincere ;  he  reflects  for  us  truthfully  the  con- 
fusion and  the  pain  that  surrounds  the  life  of  man, 
the  serene  and  joyous  calm  wherein  moves  the  life 
of  nature.  Surely  for  this  we  owe  him  our  grati- 
tude :  — 

"  Fate  gave,  what  fate  could  not  control, 
His  sad  lucidity  of  soul." 

But,  alas !  his  principles  worked  themselves  out 
to  an  inevitable  conclusion.  From  agitation  and 
emotion  he  sought  to  escape  to  the  untroubled 
calm  of  self -poise.  But  poetry,  however  cold, 
sustained,  remote,  yet  knows  emotion  for  its  soul; 
and  the  altitude  that  seeks  to  reject  emotion  can 
express  itself  in  poetic  form  only  so  long  as  the 
aim  is  not  perfectly  attained.  Arnold  achieved 
his  desire;  and  the  end  was  silence.  Control  had 
done  its  work;  he  had  repressed  his  poetry  out 
of  existence.  It  is  the  record  of  a  struggle  that 
tended  to  self-destruction.  Henceforth  he  could 
pour  forth  indefinitely  keen  criticism  and  imperso- 
nal speculation ;  but  of  the  expression  of  the  spirit 
he  could  give  us  nothing,  for  the  light  of  the  spirit 
had  been  quenched. 


THE  POETS   OF  DOUBT  265 

In  its  broad  outline,  the  experience  of  Arnold 
is  of  course   typically  and  distinctively  modern. 
Popular  heroes  of  romance  reflect  it ;  men 
of  letters,  whether  an  English  Mark  Pat-  Hugh 

c«      •  •  Clough. 

tison  or  a  bwiss  Amiel,  reproduce  it ;  and 
many  a  rare,  obscure  soul,  sinking  yet  more 
swiftly  into  silence,  is  known  only  by  inference 
even  to  its  next  of  spiritual  kin.  But  among 
poets,  the  truest  brother  in  spirit  to  Arnold  is 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough.  Close  friends  and  com- 
panions, the  two  were  in  boyhood  and  early  man- 
hood subjected  to  the  same  training  and  influences 
at  Rugby  and  Oxford.  In  Clough,  as  in  his 
friend,  the  flood  of  scientific  skepticism  rushed 
mercilessly  over  the  ardent  religious  instincts  de- 
veloped by  education.  They  were  both  sons  of 
the  early  Victorian  age,  when  social  consciousness 
had  not  yet  become  dominant  over  the  individual- 
ism even  of  the  inner  life ;  yet  both  reacted  with 
vigor  and  sorrow  against  the  outward  materialism 
of  the  times.  Neither  could  find  a  home  in  the 
accepted  Christian  tradition.  Poets  of  the  intel- 
lectual emotions,  the  character  in  each  was  —  shall 
we  say  too  weak,  or  too  evenly  balanced  ?  —  to 
yield  itself  unfalteringly  to  any  influence,  and 
clearness  of  vision  ended  in  feebleness  of  will. 
Clough,  like  Arnold,  drifted,  swayed  by  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  opposing  currents;  his  poetry  also 
gains  its  special  and  intimate  power  from  its  reve- 
lation of  the  agony  of  the  spirit ;  and  he,  too,  suc- 
cumbed to  the  disease  of  inaction,  and  allowed  his 
poetic  impulse  to  be  sterilized  by  the  surrounding 
chill. 


266  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

Yet  to  the  close  observer,  there  is  a  searching 
difference  in  the  temper  of  the  two  men.  Far  less 
polished  than  Arnold's,  dough's  poetry  yet  shows 
in  some  respects  a  freer  and  broader  power.  His 
outlook  on  modern  society  is  more  manly,  as  more 
specific  in  severity;  and  his  pungent  gift  of  mock- 
ery is  foreign  to  Arnold's  pensive  grace  and  musi- 
cal despair.  But  the  spiritual  attitude  of  the  two 
is  wider  apart  than  their  artistic  or  social  temper. 
We  read  Arnold's  laments  over  the  past,  his  in- 
tense longing  for  steadfastness  and  peace,  and  the 
conviction  grows  upon  us  that  his  keenest  regret  is 
not  faith  but  assurance,  less  the  truth  which  the 
world  has  forfeited  than  the  tranquillity  which 
the  truth  produced.  He  craves  with  an  almost 
querulous  desire  the  unquestioning  and  serene 
spirit,  which  has  fled  never  to  return.  Passing  to 
the  pages  of  his  friend,  we  find  pain  of  a  differ- 
ent order  —  the  agonized  desire  for  a  faith  that  is 
lost,  and  for  a  distant  God.  Tranquillity  is  the 
supreme  end  of  Arnold's  ambition;  the  Truth 
alone  could  satisfy  the  soul  of  Clough. 

"  Resolve  to  be  thyself  :  and  know  that  he 
Who  finds  himself  loses  his  misery,"  l 

is  Arnold's  supreme  wisdom.  Clough  reverses  the 
cry.  Let  sorrow  be  his  heritage,  if  only  God 
endure :  — 

"  It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so. 
That  howsoe'er  I  stray  and  range, 
Where'er  I  go,  Thou  dost  not  change. 
I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 
That  if  I  slip,  Thou  dost  not  fall." 

1  Self-Dependence. 


THE  POETS  OF  DOUBT  267 

This  is  the  message  not  of  self-dependence,  but 
of  self  -  abnegation.  Intellectually  agnostic  as 
Arnold,  the  poetry  of  Clough  marks  a  new  spirit- 
ual stage.  Out  of  the  very  heart  of  doubt  and 
self -despair  he  wrests  a  religious  fervor  as  deep 
and  reverent,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  say,  as  that 
of  Thomas  a  Kempis  or  Dante.  The  very  life  of 
the  soul,  its  aspiration  and  its  honesty,  its  blended 
hope  and  fear,  quiver  through  these  most  modern 
lines :  — 

"  O  Thou  whose  image  in  the  shrine 
Of  human  spirits  dwells  Divine  ; 
Which  from  that  precinct  once  conveyed 
To  be  to  outer  day  displayed, 
Dost  vanish,  part,  and  leave  behind 
Mere  blank  and  void  of  empty  mind, 
Which  willful  fancy  seeks  in  vain 
With  casual  shapes  to  fill  again ! 

"  O  Thou  that  in  our  bosom's  shrine 
Dost  dwell,  unknown  because  Divine, 
I  sought  to  speak,  I  thought  to  say, 
'  The  light  is  here,'  '  Behold  the  way,' 
'  The  Voice  was  thus,'  and  *  thus  the  Word,' 
And  '  thus  I  spoke,'  and '  thus  I  heard,'  — 
But  from  the  lips  that  half -essayed, 
The  imperfect  utterance  fell  unmade. 

"  O  Thou,  in  that  mysterious  shrine, 
Enthroned,  as  I  must  say,  Divine, 
I  will  not  franijB  one  thought  of  what 
Thou  mayst  either  be  or  not ; 
I  will  not  prate  of  '  thus '  and  '  so,' 
And  be  profane  with  '  yes '  and  '  no '  — 
Enough  that  in  my  soul  and  heart 
Thou,  whatsoe'er  Thou  mayst  be,  art. 


268      THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

"  Do  only  Thou  in  that  dim  shrine, 
Known  or  unknown,  remain  Divine, 
There,  or  if  not,  at  least  in  eyes 
That  scan  the  fact  that  round  them  lies ; 
The  hand  to  sway,  the  judgment  guide, 
In  sight  and  sense  thyself  divide  — 
Be  Thou  hut  there  —  in  mind  and  heart, 
I  will  not  ask  to  feel  Thou  art."  l 

Verily  the  soul  is  here  lost  that  it  may  be  found. 
Renunciation  could  not  be  more  absolute  than  in 
the  temper  which  asks  not  even  a  dim  intuition  of 
the  Godhead,  if  only  the  unknown  Divine  may 
shape  the  human  life  to  the  law  of  Duty.  Like 
Arnold,  Clough  never  denies  that  if  religious  cer- 
tainty is  over,  the  joy  and  freedom  of  life  are 
gone;  unlike  Arnold  he  escapes  from  knowledge 
of  self  to  hope  of  God.  Arnold's  tranquillity,  if 
attained,  would  shut  away  forever  all  hope  of  spir- 
itual insight ;  for  so  long  as  the  soul  suspects  the 
existence  of  an  absolute  verity,  it  may  know  faith 
and  pain  and  hope  and  woe,  but  it  can  never  know 
quiescence.  His  ideal  brings  to  the  soul  at  best 
the  serene  and  barren  calm  of  subservience  to 
natural  law.  Better  than  this  the  despairing  self- 
abnegation  of  Clough,  the  dim  hope  that  there  is 
a  Truth  though  we  never  attain  it,  a  God  though 
we  never  find  Him.  Clough' s  poetry  marks  the 
furthest  reach  of  the  devout  spirit  consistent  with 
entire  agnosticism  of  thought. 

&V/JLVOS. 


THE  POETS   OF  ART  269 


3.   The  Poets  of  Art 

11  If  the  sun  and  moon  should  doubt, 
They  'd  immediately  go  out," 

remarks  William  Blake,  with  direct  and  delightful 
quaintness.     The  imaginative   powers   of  Clough 
and  Arnold  were  mainly  occupied  with 
doubting;  and  though  they  did  not  "go  ^Esthetic 

„  .  ,.        ,         ,          /•     -i     i       •  -i  Reaction. 

out    immediately,  they  faded  with  strange 

but  inevitable  swiftness  into  the  twilight  of  prose 

or  the  darkness  of  utter  silence. 

\ 

Yet  what  light  may  gleam  through  the  poetry 
of  Clough  and  Arnold  is  genuine  and  from  a  natu- 
ral source.  There  is  another  group  of  poets  whose 
work  is  illumined  by  an  unreal  glamour,  like  the 
radiance  which  streams  from  an  electric  light, 
intensifying  color  and  distorting  form,  but  of  al- 
most magical  beauty. 

It  may  seem  useless,  in  discussing  the  spiritual 
struggles  of  modern  poetry,  to  touch  upon  the 
work  of  Rossetti,  Morris,  and  Swinburne.  We 
may  even  fear  lest  they  should  divert  us  from  our 
quest. 

"  Were  it  not  better  done,  as  others  use, 
To  sport  with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade, 
Or  with  the  tangles  of  Nesera's  hair  ?  " 

Yet  this  school  of  poets  marks  a  distinct  phase  in 
the  progress  of  the  spiritual  imagination.  With- 
out them  a  stage  in  the  struggle  of  the  soul  would 
remain  unrecorded,  a  line  of  solution  untried. 
Despite  earthly  themes  and  aesthetic  emphasis, 
the  true  place  of  the  school  can  only  be  found 


270  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

through  its  relation  to  the  spiritual  movement  of 
the  age.  It  stands  for  a  defiant  and  conscious  neg- 
lect of  that  subtle  search  for  the  Truth  which 
moves  the  other  Victorian  poets.  The  animating 
principle  of  all  its  varied  work  is  a  profound^  lassi- 
tude with  thought.  To  escape  from  the  sting 
of  undiscovered  truth  and  the  long  torment  of 
thought-activity,  to  a  world  where  the  ringing  call 
to  action  should  never  be  heard  nor  the  whisper 
of  doubt  penetrate,  to  take  refuge  in  a  region 
"where  music  and  moonlight  and  feeling  are  one," 
is  the  aim  of  the  poets  of  the  aesthetic  reaction. 

Among  the  Victorians,  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  and 
Morris  are  the  chief  exponents  of  the  technical 
Eomantic  movement,  j  From  the  first  of  the  cen- 

i 

tury,  this  movement  had  been  vigorous  and  vital. 
"A  great  civilization,"  writes  Mr.  Watts,  "hav- 
ing reached  the  stage  of  acceptance,  has  turned 
back,  and  become  haunted  by  a  sense  of  mystery 
as  deep  as  ever."  This  "Renascence  of  Wonder" 
had  asserted  itself  in  its  picturesque  aspect  with 
Scott,  in  its  aesthetic  aspect  with  Keats,  in  its 
spiritual  aspect  with  Coleridge.  All  these  poets 
have  the  "beauty  touched  with  strangeness  "  which 
is  the  note  of  romantic  art.  But  romanticism  is 
with  them  all  instinct,  not  dogma.  To  make  it 
dogma,  consciously  to  emphasize  its  two  factors 
of  realism  and  symbolism,  —  factors  contradictory 
yet  alike  essential,  —  was  left  for  the  studied  work 
of  the  later  school  of  Rossetti. 

The  assumptions  of  this  school  and  of  the  poets 
of  doubt  are  identical,  —  agnosticism  as  to  spir- 


THE  POETS   OF  ART  271 

itual  facts.  The  two  groups  draw  for  a  moment 
very  near  historically,  when  we  find  in  one  num- 
ber of  "The  Germ"  —  modest  and  fervid  little 
organ  of  the  fervid  and  modest  young  pre-Kapha- 
elite  Brotherhood  —  a  sympathetic  criticism  of 
two  new  poems,  Arnold's  "Strayed  Reveller,"  and 
Clough's  "Bothie  of  Tober-na-Vuolich."  But 
however  the  thought-outlook  may  agree,  and  what- 
ever eager  thread  of  sympathy  may  thrill  from  one 
delightful  young  group  to  another,  the  schools  de- 
velop in  contrary  directions.  Clough  and  Arnold 
live,  as  truly  as  Kossetti,  in  a  land  of  shadows ;  but 
while  to  the  poets  of  doubt  the  twilight  is  abhor- 
rent, to  the  poets  of  art  it  is  dear.  Mystery, 
hated  by  the  first  school,  is  by  the  second  hailed 
and  sought ;  to  the  first  conviction  is  the  supreme 
desire,  to  the  other  emotion,  vivid  and  subjective, 
is  the  adequate  end  of  life. 

i  Emotion  itself,  to  be  complete,  must  include 
the  religious  element.  The  devotional  feelings, 
of  consecration,  sacrifice,  and  adoration, 

'     Dante 

are  the  finest  part  of  man  s   emotional    Gabriel 

.  r  Rossetti. 

heritage.  And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that 
Eossetti,  at  least,  is  a  deeply  religious,  indeed  a 
deeply  Christian  poet.  Far  from  denying  the 
Christian  dogma,  he  absorbs  it  all,  in  its  most 
heightened  or  Catholic  form,  and  expresses  it  with 
ardent,  genuine,  and  unperplexed  devotion.  The 
aesthetic  and  emotional  value  of  the  Christian  ideal 
and  the  spiritual  attitude  of  the  Church  were 
never  inore  exquisitely  rendered  than  in  his  early 


272  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

work.  A  sacramental  calm  rests  upon  it,  a  hush 
of  awed  sincerity. 

"This  is  that  blessed  Mary,  preelect 

God's  Virgin.     Gone  is  a  great  while,  and  she 

Dwelt  young  in  Nazareth  of  Galilee. 
Unto  God's  will  she  brought  devout  respect, 
Profound  simplicity  of  intellect 

And  supreme  patience.     From  her  mother's  knee 

Faithful  and  hopeful ;  wise  in  charity  ; 
Strong  in  grave  peace  ;  in  pity  circumspect. 

So  held  she  through  her  girlhood  ;  as  it  were 
An  angel-watered  lily,  that  near  God 
Grows  and  is  quiet.     Till  one  dawn  at  home, 
She  woke  in  her  white  bed,  and  felt  no  fear 
At  all,  —  yet  wept  till  sunshine,  and  felt  awed ; 
Because  the  fullness  of  the  time  was  come."  l 

Assuredly,  he  who  penned  these  lines  was  one  of 
the  faithful,  nor  can  we  question  the  personal 
genuineness  of  the  man  who  on  his  deathbed  called 
for  a  priest  to  absolve  him  from  his  sins. 

Yet  nothing  is  surer  than  that  Rossetti  never 
possessed  even  the  shadow  of  intellectual  convic- 
tion. He  never  questioned,  but  he  never  be- 
lieved. He  was  serene  and  fervid  in  his  choice 
of  a  Christian  environment;  the  reality  of  such 
environment  was  to  him  matter  of  complete  indif- 
ference. Reality,  indeed,  outside  of  personal  emo- 
tion, had  for  him  scant  meaning.  His  Lady 
Beauty  was  a  dream-woman  after  all.  As  his 
own  Beryl-Stone,  his  poetry  is  strewn  with  shud- 
dering light,  like  the  cloud-nest  of  the  wading 
moon;  but  the  light  is  an  enchanted  gleam  from 
within,  no  simple  reflection  of  a  sun  without.  Ros- 

1  Sonnet :  Mary's  Girlhood. 


THE  POETS   OF  ART  273 

setti  might  say  with  his  master,  Keats,  "I  have 
no  opinion  upon  anything  in  the  world,  except 
upon  matters  of  taste."  As  his  work  goes  on,  the 
Christian  tone  lessens,  the  Christian  themes  are 
discarded;  and  although  in  such  a  poem  as  the 
wonderful  "Rose-Mary,"  the  Catholic  setting  re- 
mains, strange  recondite  and  unhallowed  imagery 
is  added  to  the  symbols  of  faith,  to  enhance  the 
sense  of  wonder  which  is  the  soul  of  his  poetry. 
Weird  and  spiritual  are  indeed  often  confused  in 
Eossetti.  It  is  easy  enough  to  read,  between  the 
lines  of  his  glowing  emotion  and  intense  visual 
imaginings,  his  genuine  creed;  and  that  creed  is 
simple.  A  solemn  sense  of  vast  encompassing 
Mystery,  a  conviction  of  the  unfathomable  depths 
of  human  passion,  —  these  are  its  factors. 

"  The  day  is  dark  and  the  night 

To  him  that  would  search  their  heart, 
No  lips  of  cloud  that  will  part, 
Nor  morning  song  in  the  light : 
Only,  gazing  alone, 
To  him  wild  shadows  are  shown, 
Deep  under  deep  unknown, 
And  height  above  unknown  height. 
Still  we  say  as  we  go, 

Strange  to  think  by  the  way, 
Whatever  there  is  to  know 
That  shall  we  know  one  day. 

"  The  past  is  over  and  fled, 

Named  new,  we  name  it  the  old, 
Thereof  some  tale  hath  been  told, 
But  no  word  comes  from  the  dead,   \ 
Whether  at  all  they  be, 
Or  whether  as  bond  or  free, 
Or  whether  they  too  were  we, 


274      THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

Or  by  what  spell  they  were  sped, 
Still  we  say  as  we  go, 

'  Strange  to  think  by  the  way 
Whatever  there  is  to  know 
That  shall  we  know  one  day.' 

"  The  sky  leans  dumb  on  the  sea 
Aweary  with  all  its  wings  — 
And  oh !  the  song  the  sea  sings 
Is  dark  everlastingly. 
Our  past  is  clean  forgot, 
Our  present  is  and  is  not, 
Our  future  's  a  sealed  seed-plot, 
And  what  betwixt  them  are  we  ? 
We  who  say  as  we  go, 

*  Strange  to  think  by  the  way, 
Whatever  there  is  to  know, 
That  shall  we  know  one  day."  l 

Sometimes,  as  in  "Soothsay,"  or  in  the  sonnet 
"Last  Days,"  an  unaccustomed  ethical  note,  stern, 
sad,  piercing,  reaches  us,  but  a  note  of  religious 
conviction  never.  In  its  fervid  and  sacred  color, 
invaded  by  gathering  dusk,  though  seemingly  the 
triumph  of  the  day,  Rossetti's  poetry  represents 
to  us  the  full  image  of  the  afterglow  of  religious 
emotion,  when  the  sun  of  religious  truth  has  set. 

Eossetti's  poetry,   full  of  delicate  and   devout 
mysticism,  subdued  to  a  worshipful  peace,  seems 
to  entice  us  with  a  spirituality  more  fer-  Wimam 
vid  and  more  absolute  than  is  to  be  found  * 
elsewhere  in  our  modern  poets.     And  if  we  shrink 
with  unconscious  impulse  from  applying  the  term 
"spiritual"  to  the  poet  of  the  "House  of  Life," 

1  The  Cloud-Confines. 


THE  POETS   OF  ART  275 

it  is  with  an  undertone  of  reproach  that  lines  from 
"Ave"  or  "World's  Worth"  sing  themselves 
through  our  mind. 

Yet  the  thought  of  Dante  Gabriel  Eossetti 
clashes  against  a  genuine  religious  temper  with 
absurd  incongruity.  And  if  we  ask  why,  we  may 
find  indeed  a  partial  answer  in  our  knowledge  of 
his  lack  of  all  conviction;  but  a  fuller  answer 
waits  us  in  the  work  of  his  followers.  So  far 
as  the  attitude  towards  spiritual  truth  is  concerned, 
the  sequence  in  the  aesthetic  poets  can  be  traced, 
swift,  clear,  and  terrible.  The  instability  of  re- 
ligion founded  not  on  conviction  but  on  emotion 
could  not  be  more  clearly  shown. 

It  was  in  1857  that  Burne-Jones,  Swinburne, 
and  Morris  became  Eossetti 's  disciples.  In  pain- 
ter, poet,  and  poet-painter  alike,  the  power  of  the 
visual  imagination  met  the  yet  greater  power  of 
symbolism  and  suggestion,  and  it  is  hard  to  say 
whether  there  is  more  poetry  in  their  painting  or 
painting  in  their  verse.  All,  as  Eossetti,  imbued 
with  romanticism  in  the  highest  sense,  they  all 
alike,  while  laying  high  stress  on  Beauty,  value  it 
as  language  rather  than  as  end,  and  are  thus  less 
realist  than  mystic.  Yet  the  change  in  the  mean- 
ing of  the  beauty -word  measures  the  gradual  death 
of  the  spirit  through  their  poetry  and  bends  to- 
wards that  baffling  union  of  mysticism  with  ma- 
terialism which  has  so  strange  a  development  in 
contemporary  France. 

As  we  turn  from  Eossetti  to  Morris,  we  notice 

first  the  likeness  in  artistic  handling  and  method 

-    *      •  ioP^x 

f  OF  THE  ^ 

[UNIVERSITY 


276  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

that  stamps  the  disciple.  There  is  the  same  search 
for  the  recondite,  though  in  Morris  it  is  more 
often  by  the  marvelous  than  by  the  symbolic  that 
the  search  is  gratified ;  there  is  an  allied  type  of 
feminine  beauty;  there  is  technical  handling  of 
rhyme  and  metre  stamped  with  the  same  school. 
And  yet,  through  all  likeness,  there  makes  itself 
felt  an  increasing  change. 

The  world  of  Morris  is  a  world  of  forms  and 
dreams,  lacking  the  substantial  verity  even  of  emo- 
tion. Alone  among  modern  poets  he  rests  for 
poetic  material  entirely  upon  the  past,  and  his  in- 
ventive faculty  is  sterile.  The  deepest  passion, 
human  and  spiritual,  in  his  poems,  comes  from  his 
sources,  not  from  his  own  creative  power.  Ethical 
fatalism  is  inherent  in  the  dark  tale  of  Sigurd 
the  Volsung ;  hints  of  higher  meaning  play  always, 
delicately  pure,  through  the  mythologies  of  Greece 
and  of  the  North.  Such  hints  the  poet  of  "  The 
Earthly  Paradise "  heightens  with  modern  art  : 
he  adds  to  them  nothing.  And  despite  the  mar- 
velous charm  of  the  old  stories  and  the  grace  of 
the  telling,  it  is  difficult  to  linger  long  in  the 
world  of  Morris  the  poet.  An  intense  narrow- 
ness has  invaded  his  conception  of  life.  One 
woman  forever  wanders  through  his  varied  climes, 
and  we  weary  soon  of  clinging  draperies,  gray 
eyes,  and  tender  feet.  One  young  hero,  superb, 
but  if  the  truth  be  told,  monotonous,  beholds  the 
maiden,  loves,  loses,  wins,  or  dies.  Delight  in 
the  deed  is  feeble  in  all  the  poets  of  art,  and  the 
blows  that  ring  through  the  poems  of  Morris  sound 


THE  POETS   OF  ART  277 

hollow  and  false.  If  the  motif  of  action  is  unused, 
the  range  of  feeling  even  is  narrowed.  Emotion 
reduces  itself  to  two  phases  or  indeed  to  one;  a 
solitary  natural  passion,  death-haunted  to  the  end. 
Of  the  subtleties  of  the  inner  life,  he  gives  no 
hint.  The  whole  world  of  experience  so  intimately 
known  to  Eossetti,  the  world  where  the  soul  meets 
or  seeks  the  Eternal,  is  closed  to  him.  In  the 
first  pre-Raphaelites  religious  passion  was  welded 
in  strange  and  enthralling  unison  with  the  passion 
for  earthly  beauty.  In  Morris  it  has  vanished. 

With  action  and  religion  eliminated,  with  hu- 
man intercourse  reduced  to  its  simplest  and  most 
primitive  elements,  what  is  left? 

Pure  charm  of  limpid  verse  and  lovely  picture. 
The  aesthetic,  which  has  in  Rossetti  subdued  the 
other  factors  of  life  to  its  own  service,  has  ended 
by  suppressing  them,  and  behold!  the  process  is 
suicidal.  The  aesthetic  itself,  stifled,  dies  from 
sheer  lack  of  air.  The  sad  tale  of  the  Wanderers, 
seeking  eternal  youth  and  in  their  heart-sick  fail- 
ure turning  to  dreams  of  the  past  for  solace,  —  here 
is  the  true  prototype  of  the  lovely,  vacant,  sorrow- 
ful verse  of  Morris.  Intense  clinging  to  a  life 
which  is  yet  a  little  empty,  intense  horror  of  a 
death  whose  shadow,  cast  along  the  path  beside 
terrified  lovers,  advances  silently  nearer  day  by 
day,  —  here,  to  Morris  the  poet,  is  human  life. 

"  Death  have  we  hated,  knowing  not  what  it  meant, 

Life  have  we  loved,  through  green  leaf  and  through  sere, 
Though  still  the  less  we  knew  of  its  intent ; 

The  Earth  and  Heaven  through  countless  year  on  year 


278  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

Slow-changing1,  were  to  us  but  curtains  fair, 
Hung  round  about  a  little  room,  where  play 
Weeping  and  laughter  of  man's  empty  day."  1 

To  Morris  the  poet.  With  Morris  the  socialist 
we  are  not  dealing.  A  new  life  was  to  come  to 
the  prophet  and  champion  of  the  social  democracy; 
but  he  was  to  find  it  by  breaking  loose  from  all 
traditions  of  sestheticism,  and  by  flinging  himself 
full  on  life. 

^     x       >    . -— 

"  From  too  much  love  of  living1, 
^Frdm  hope  and  fear  set  free, 
We  thank^wt&^bnef  thanksgiving 

Whatever  Gods  may  be 
That  nojlf e  lives  jforever ; 
That  dead  men  rise  up  never ; 

v        —  o     v^ ,    y,  \j      ^. 

That  even  the  weariest  river 
Winds  somewhere  safe  to  sea."  2 

Fear  of  death  will  turn  to  longing  for  death  at 

last;  for  in  the  Garden  of  Proserpine  all  fear  is 

stilled.     If  to  Morris  life  is  empty,  to 

Algernon  r  J 

Charles         Swinburne  life  is  cruel.     In  his  gentlest 

Swinburne.  .  ° 

mood  a  cry  for  oblivion;  in  reckless, 
restless  moods  defiance  of  God,  man,  and  fate ;  — 
here,  so  far  as  any  thought  analysis  is  possible  to 
apply  to  sheer  wind-music,  is  the  basis  of  Swin- 
burne's temper.  Passion  is  still  a  spiritual  wor- 
ship to  Eossetti;  to  Morris  it  is  natural  and  a3S- 
thetic  delight;  to  the  poet  of  "Chastelard"  it  is 
a  flame  in  the  flesh,  consuming  one  may  not  say 
the  soul,  but  the  very  consciousness  itself.  The 
plaintive  and  melodious  fear  of  death  which  runs 

1  Epilogue  to  The  Earthly  Paradise. 

2  The  Garden  of  Proserpine. 


THE  POETS  OF  ART  279 

in  minor  note  through  the  poetry  of  Morris  we 
sometimes  suspect  to  be  an  artistic  motif,  resorted 
to  because  motifs  are  scant :  the  shuddering  horror 
of  death,  alternating  with  morbid  craving  for  obliv- 
ion, which  rings  through  the  poetry  of  Swinburne, 
is  genuine  as  anything  can  be  genuine  in  this 
poetry  of  harmonious  sound  rather  than  of  imagi- 
nation all  compact.  Intellectual  conviction  is  al- 
ready lost,  in  Rossetti ;  but  the  world  of  spiritual 
experience  and  emotion  remains  seemingly  intact, 
with  its  fine  sensations,  subtle  joys,  and  exquis- 
itely significant  sorrows.  To  Morris  this  world 
has  passed  away;  the  heavens  are  closed  and  the 
inner  life  is  vacant.  Yet  the  earth  is  still  very 
good  and  life  is  sweet,  though  simple  to  the  verge 
of  tameness;  and  if  through  all  the  joy  of  ele- 
mental love  and  natural  beauty  there  breathes  a 
thought  of  pain  and  fear,  that  thought  does  but 
enhance  the  dearness  of  the  present.  But  to  Swin- 
burne the  present  has  neither  sacredness  nor  charm. 
Acknowledging  no  sphere  but  that  of  the  senses 
and  the  passions,  unable  to  ignore  the  dreams  of 
heaven  or  to  escape  knowledge  that  there  exists  in 
the  world  a  gospel  of  renunciation  sad  and  stern, 
Swinburne  finds  life  bitter  at  the  core.  Far  from 
contentment  in  a  dream  world  of  Christianity  like 
Rossetti,  or  in  a  dream  world  of  art  like  Morris, 
he  resorts  to  denunciation  of  the  faith  which  he 
denies.  It  would  be  unreasonable  to  lay  over- 
much stress  on  poetic  declamation,  often  doubtless 
written  for  effect,  in  the  absence  of  more  positive 
inspiration;  yet  bravado  is  in  itself  significant, 


280  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

and  this  resounding  and  empty  verse  witnesses  to 
the  hollowness  of  life  when  the  Spirit  of  Life  is 
denied.  We  look  in  vain  for  a  positive  gospel, 
religious  or  social,  in  the  unequaled  music  of 
Swinburne.  Paeans  on  a  liberty  which  is  nega- 
tion of  restraint,  and  has  advanced  not  one  whit 
beyond  the  revolutionary  conception  of  Byron; 
paeans  on  man,  coupled  with  the  denial  of  the 
best  that  man  has  thought ;  —  such  are  the  sub- 
stitutes for  religion  in  the  last  of  the  aesthetic 
school. 

The  poets  of  art  have  vainly  sought  to  build  up 
a  creative  literature  on  a  basis  of  accepted  nega- 
tion. All  that  gives  depth  and  variety  to  their 
poetry  is  the  lingering  influence  of  the  spiritual 
convictions  which  they  discard.  As  this  influence 
dies  away,  poetry  fades  into  externality,  and  van- 
ishes in  rebellion  which  is  not  sufficiently  intellec- 
tual even  to  sustain  interest.  The  poets  of  doubt 
found  brief  but  real  inspiration  in  bemoaning  the 
loss  of  spiritual  vision:  the  poets  of  art  find  in- 
spiration less  genuine  and  hardly  longer  sustained 
in  ignoring  the  existence  of  such  loss.  From  un- 
real intensity,  the  poetry  of  art  passes  into  monot- 
onous languor,  and  sinks  at  last  into  a  gulf  of  the 
senses  from  which  no  inflation  of  outworn  politi- 
cal ideals  and  no  effort  to  give  to  audacious  rebel- 
lion the  substantial  force  of  faith,  can  ultimately 
or  long  redeem  it. 


TENNYSON  AND  "IN  MEMORIAM"     281 

4.   Tennyson  and  "In  Memoriam" 
One  of  the  rare  coincidences  of  fact  with  ideal 
justice  placed  the  laurel  upon  the  brows  of  Tenny- 
son.    He  may  not  have  been  the  most  TheMod- 
highly  dowered  of  the  Victorian  poets  in  ern  Sou1' 
spontaneous  poetic  impulse;  but  he  gave  us,  in 
many  ways,  the  widest  poetic  achievement.     He 
hardly  led  men  to  new  heights  of  vision,  but  he 
purged  their  eyes  to  clearer  insight  in  the  region 
where  they  stood.    If  the  poet  of  "Saul"  is  the 
^leader  of  the  modern  seekers  for  truth  ^the  poet  of 
"In  Memoriam  "  is  their  representative. 

For  Tennyson  had  one  of  those  choice  natures 
of  the  second  order,  which  are  formed  by  sur- 
rounding influences,  and  serve  for  the  future  as 
types  of  the  age  in  which  they  live.  He  did  not 
transcend  his  time:  he  revealed  it.  Disciple  of 
the  romantic  movement,  his  first  ideals  in  verse 
are  shaped  by  the  touch  of  Keats,  his  choice  of 
mediaeval  themes  held  him  in  the  romantic  tradi- 
tion, and  he  continued  to  the  end  master  of  the 
technique  of  romantic  art.  Yet  it  was  the  modern 
scientific  movement  in  its  ethical  bearing  that 
shaped  his  graver  thought;  and  the  friend  of 
Maurice  was  plunged  deep  in  the  religious  prob- 
lems of  the  day. 

We  find  in  Tennyson  all  the  phases  of  temper 
characteristic  of  poets  of  the  minor  schools.  The 
aesthetic  philosophy  is  searched  by  him  with  a 
sympathy  born  of  experience,  as  witnesses  "  The 
Palace  of  Art."  Yet  for  him  as  for  Clough  and 


282  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

Arnold,  we  may  say,  with  a  touch  of  paradox, 
that  passion  centred  in  the  life  of  thought.  Nei- 
ther Arnold  nor  Clough  illustrates  more  fully  the 
modern  reflective  method,  or  the  transfer  of  the 
drama  from  the  stage  of  outer  action  to  that  of 
inward  consciousness.  A  far  wider  man,  not  only 
in  his  writing  but  in  his  personality,  Tennyson 
yet  belongs  largely  to  the  same  tradition.  The 
son  of  a  clergyman,  he  grew  up  like  the  younger 
poets  in  the  atmosphere  of  Anglican  Christianity, 
and  was  deeply  imbued  with  its  controlled  beauty, 
and  impressed  by  its  emphasis  on  the  inner  life. 
Like  them,  he  was  exposed  to  the  strong  reaction 
towards  scientific  skepticism  that  marked  the  open- 
ing half  of  Victoria's  reign.  Out  of  this  double 
influence  issued  his  poetry. 

With  such  equipment  of  temperament  and  tra- 
dition, and  with  a  poetic  equipment  unsurpassed 
in  delicate  resources,  the  young  Tennyson  awaited 
his  inspiration.  In  1833  it  came  to  him.  The 
Shadow  "that  keeps  the  keys  of  all  the  creeds" 
crossed  his  pathway;  and  he  set  forth,  with  the 
sharp  consciousness  of  loss  upon  him,  on  the  quest 
of  immortal  love. 

"In  Memoriam  "  appeared  in  1850.  It  is  the 
central  poem  of  the  century,  not  only  in  date,  but 
in  scope  and  character.  In  its  complexity  and  in- 
wardness, its  passion  pulsing  through  every  vein 
of  thought,  its  faltering  inconsistencies  and  slow 
approaches,  it  has  caught  the  very  movement  of 
the  age.  In  structure  it  is  organic  and  vital. 
Supreme  among  elegies,  it  is  more  than  an  elegy : 


TENNYSON   AND  "IN  MEMORIAM"    283 

it  is  the  epic  of  a  soul,  rendered  not  symbolically, 
as  in  the  "Divine  Comedy,"  but  with  a  directness 
native  to  a  scientific  age.  More  than  Clough's 
"Dipsychus"  or  Arnold's  "Empedocles,"  the 
poem  lays  bare  to  us  the  interior  life  of  the  typical 
modern  mind. 

Perhaps  the  first  thing  that  impresses  us  is 
Tennyson's  rejection  of  literary  conventionality. 
He  throws  aside  the  classical  tradition  that  neither 
Milton  nor  Shelley  can  discard.  The  ideal  land- 
scape of  "  Adonais "  gives  place  to  the  sweet 
English  country,  with  its  wide  autumnal  meadows, 
dripping  woods,  and  gentle  skies.  Roses  and 
myrtles  yield  "  to  the  little  speedwell's  darling 
blue,"  the  foxglove,  and  the  laburnum.  The  para- 
phernalia of  mythical  mourners  has  vanished,  and 
the  soul,  without  even  figures  of  speech  to  support 
it,  is  left  in  the  utter  solitude  of  grief. 

In  this  grave  simplicity  of  method,  the  charac- 
ter of  Tennyson  is  clearly  manifest.  It  is  no  gen- 
eralized mourner  as  in  "Adonais  "  or  "Lycidas :  "  it 
is  Alfred  Tennyson,  the  lineaments  of  whose  inner 
life  show  plainly  through  the  veil  of  sorrow.  He 
is  sensitive,  reticent,  courageous,  emphatically  the 
modern  man.  The  awfulness  of  his  experience 
shakes  the  very  centre  of  his  being ; l  yet  almost 
the  first  sign  of  recurring  life  in  the  paralysis  of 
sorrow  is  the  cry  of  the  awakening  will,  "that  will 
not  be  the  fool  of  loss."  His  firmer  mind  is 
formed,  not,  as  in  weak  natures,  by  flight  from 
memory,  but  by  "trea'suring  the  look  it  cannot 
1  Canto  IV. 


284  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

find,  the  words  that  are  not  heard  again."1  The 
subtlety  of  thought  and  feeling  is  manifest  in  every 
line.  It  is  a  high-minded  nature  that  finds  not 
consolation  but  an  added  pain  in  dwelling  on  the 
commonness  of  grief.2  Deeply  controlled,  as  the 
very  metre  reveals  with  its  outward  evenness  and 
inward  throb  of  reiterated  pain,  the  poet  shows, 
in  most  tense  reaches  of  emotion,  in  the  very  mo- 
ment when  he  seeks  dread  intercourse  with  the 
Spirit  that  has  fled,  an  unfaltering  sanity.3  Dow- 
ered with  the  modern  consciousness  that  not  only 
suffers  but  watches  itself  suffer,  Tennyson  adds  to 
his  natural  sorrow  "the  imaginative  woe  that  loves 
to  handle  spiritual  strife."4  Lifting  his  experience 
out  of  the  personal  into  the  typical  after  our  mod- 
ern fashion,  and  uniting  it  with  all  possible  broader 
issues  of  the  inner  life,  the  Tennyson  of  "In  Me- 
moriam "  has  given  us  a  poem  which  is  indeed 
universal,  but  which  derives  its  peculiar  force  to 
us  from  its  revelation  of  the  modern  soul. 

"In  Memoriam  "  is  a  poem  of  triumph,  but  of 
triumph  overcast.  The  pall  of  gloom  that  broods 
The  Mod-  heavily  above  the  soul  at  the  beginning 
em  Method.  jg  jn(jee(j  soon  broken  by  far,  sad  regions 
of  light.  Towards  the  end  the  sun  itself  streams 
forth,  illumining  the  sorrow  to  beauty ;  but  it  is  an 
English  sunlight,  white,  not  golden,  still  filtered 
through  a  veil  of  pensive  mists. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  poem  wider  and  more 
subtle  in  rendering  the  possible  sufferings  of  a 

1  Canto  XVIII.  2tCanto  VI. 

3  Canto  XCIV.  *  Canto  LXXXV. 


TENNYSON  AND  "IN  MEMORIAM"    285 

soul  shaken  free  from  all  convention  by  the  shock 
of  pain.  Problems  of  the  mind,  the  conduct,  and 
the  heart  blend  and  break,  one  against  the  other, 
with  the  pathetic  inconsistency,  the  alternations  of 
fervor  and  stupor,  of  sorrowful  life  itself.  In  the 
Prelude,  Cantos  1-28,  the  forces,  stunned  by  sor- 
row, gather  themselves  together  for  conflict.  In 
the  first  Cycle,  Cantos  28-78,  sometimes  called  the 
Cycle  of  the  Past,  are  concentrated  the  most  poig- 
nant problems  of  thought ;  in  the  second,  the  Cy- 
cle of  the  Present,  Cantos  78-104,  are  faced  the 
problems  of  the  life  of  feeling  and  action  which 
the  soul,  on  earth,  cannot  escape;  while  in  the 
Cycle  of  the  Future,  Cantos  104-119,  the  outlook 
is  mainly  towards  an  ideal  social  order,  and  the 
humanity  to  be.  The  concluding  poems  give  the 
summary  and  interpretation,  in  the  light  of  faith 
won  at  last,  of  the  great  problem.  From  the  very 
beginning,  the  personal  grief  is  taken  up  into  a 
larger  sorrow.  The  problem  that  confronts  the 
poet  is  to  find  a  witness  to  eternal  life  in  the  pres- 
ence of  that  vast  witness  to  perpetual  death  seem- 
ingly given  by  nature  and  our  human  fears.  The 
great  question  is  viewed,  now  from  the  side  of 
emotion,  now  from  that  of  thought,  and  at  times 
the  shore  of  assurance  seems  far  away.  In  the 
fluctuating  motion  that  tosses  the  bitter  foam  of 
doubt  over  most  dear  and  sacred  desires,  one  firm 
fact  alone  remains,  giving  to  the  poem  the  neces- 
sary coherence  of  structure.  It  is  the  constancy 
of  human  love  on  earth,  to  which  from  the  begin- 
ning the  poet  desperately  and  blindly  clings.  Be- 


286  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

fore  the  end  of  the  great  soul-epic,  this  constancy, 
gathering  to  itself  all  of  thought  and  feeling  that 
can  minister  to  faith,  becomes  to  him  the  calm 
revealer  of  a  love  beyond  the  grave. 

"In  Memoriam,"  taken  as  a  whole,  has  a  tone 
profoundly  Christian,  it  advances  towards  a  tri- 
umphant and  Christian  end.  Yet*  if  we  regard 
not  conclusion  but  method,  we  find  the  poem  in  es- 
sence skeptical.  Its  agnosticism  lies  intellectually 
though  not  spiritually  as  deep  as  its  Christianity, 
its  very  faith  is  of  the  agnostic  type.  For  this 
faith  is  held  by  effort  of  the  will,  not  by  demon- 
stration of  reason.  From  the  first  awakening  of 
volition  when  the  fumes  of  sorrow  roll  away,  to 
the  final  apostrophe :  — 

"  O  Living  Will  that  shalt  endure 
When  all  that  seems  shall  suffer  shock," 

choice,  not  conviction,  determines  creed.  There  is 
much  meditation  suffused  with  thoughtful  argu- 
ment, but  the  arguments  do  but  circle  around  the 
central  problem,  disposing  of  minor  difficulties  but 
never  touching  its  gloomy  heart.  Next  to  the 
will,  feeling  is  the  great  champion  of  faith.  The 
heart  in  wrath  gives  to  the  cruel  suggestions  of 
reason  the  reiterated  answer:  "I  have  felt."  They 
are  lame  hands  of  faith  indeed  that  the  poet 
stretches  out.  The  final  triumph  won  is  that  of 
simple  trust:  trust  adequate  to  console  and  even 
to  nerve  to  conduct,  not  adequate  to  create  even 
the  illusion  of  knowledge.  Reason,  Tennyson  em- 
phasizes again  and  again  with  calm  and  sad  assur- 
ance, can  never  attain  to  truth.  We  must  "faintly 


TENNYSON  AND  "IN  MEMORIAM"    287 

trust  the  larger  hope,"  "believing  where  we  cannot 
prove;"  and  as  this  sad  phrase  confronts  us  in 
the  Prologue,  we  find  it  once  more  at  the  very 
end,  where  once  more  we  are  bidden  to  trust 
"with  faith  that  comes  of  self -control"  "  the  truths 
that  never  can  be  proved  "  on  earth. 

The  intellectual  problems  are  indeed  hardly 
met,  much  less  answered ;  and  yet,  before  the  end, 
reason  in  a  sense  is  satisfied.  The  movement  of 
the  poem  is  close  to  that  of  experience,  far  from 
that  of  pure  thought,  and  hence  comes  its  very  vi- 
tality and  power.  Facts  of  nature  and  of  the  soul 
come  to  the  poet  whose  love  is  clasping  grief  with 
desperate  instinct,  as  mocking,  hideous,  serene 
denials  of  the  spiritual  truth  for  which  he  longs. 
Tortured,  but  touchingly  sincere,  the  soul  again 
and  again  faces  and  voices  with  unflinching  com- 
pleteness the  message  of  despair:  it  then  turns 
away,  exhausted  by  the  very  intensity  of  thought- 
sorrow,  and  sinks  for  rest  into  the  healing  and 
normal  sorrow  of  the  heart.  Long  after,  when 
much  new  experience  has  been  entered,  when  the 
spirit  has  been  strengthened  by  courageous  endur- 
ance and  the  conquest  of  practical  solutions,  the 
same  fact  will  recur :  and  behold !  it  is  no  longer 
dark  with  insidious  denial,  but  the  radiant  witness 
to  faith.  In  the  mystery  of  sub-consciousness,  the 
great  change  has  been  wrought. 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  first  hint  of  wider  thought 
that  comes  to  the  dazed  spirit  is  the  terrible  con- 
ception of  nature  as  a  great  phantom,  hollow  and 
unsubstantial,  the  mere  mocking  image  of  man. 


288  THE  POETRY   OF  SEARCH 

The  conception  is  languidly  dropped;  for  at  first 
the  pathetic  hints  at  thought  of  the  bruised  spirit 
are  lame  and  broken,  •  and  it  is  long  before  they 
have  strength  to  gather  themselves  into  consecu- 
tive sequence.  But  far  later,  in  the  triumphant 
conclusion,  the  idea  reappears,  and  how  different 
is  its  aspect!  Once  it  forced  the  soul  into  the 
very  solitude  of  death:  now  it  is  the  joyous  wit- 
ness of  perfect  idealism.  The  world  is  shadow 
indeed,  but  the  shadow  of  immortal  spirit.  The 
solid  lands  may  melt  like  mists,  like  clouds  may 
shape  themselves  and  go:  the  poet  knows  that 
they  exist  as  symbol  only  of  eternal  love. 

The  most  striking  instance  of  such  recurrence 
and  renewal,  by  which  a  thought  that  has  been 
witness  to  death  returns  as  witness  to  life,  is  in 
the  crisis  of  the  soul's  experience.  Through  all 
the  earlier  stages,  the  poet  has  with  passionate, 
tacit  instinct  refused  to  believe  in  Waste,  and  has 
grounded  his  intuition  of  immortal  life  on  such 
refusal.  Suddenly  his  faith  deserts  him.  A  con- 
viction of  the  terrible  wastefulness  of  nature,  of 
her  cruel,  ut.ter  indifference  to  life,  sweeps  over 
his  soul.  In  Cantos  54-57,  where  he  faces  full 
this  Sphinx  of  Nature,  Tennyson  touches  his  low- 
est depths  of  spiritual  anguish.  The  individual 
dies,  the  type  itself  perishes,  and  nature  "red  in 
tooth  and  claw  with  ravin "  replies  with  cynical 
silence  to  the  human  cry :  — 

"  Thou  makest  thine  appeal  to  me, 
I  bring1  to  life,  I  bring  to  death. 
The  spirit  does  but  mean  the  breath, 
I  know  no  more.'' 


TENNYSON  AND   "  IN  MEMORIAM"     289 

In  the  presence  of  the  wild  law  of  chance  and 
death  and  the  blank  ignorance  of  nature,  the  soul 
quivers  with  its  nearest  approach  to  uncontrolled 
despair.  With  a  pleading  cry,  terrible  in  its  ab- 
sence of  logic,  for  the  soothing  Voice  forever 
stilled,  it  turns  aside  from  this  "wild  singing"  in 
the  abrupt,  final  word  of  pain,  "  behind  the  veil, 
behind  the  veil."  In  the  very  moment  of  the 
"ave"  for  eternity  it  feels  its  passionate  sorrow 
insulting  to  the  calm  of  the  beloved  Dead,  and 
wends  its  way  to  other  regions,  the  hopeless  cry 
unanswered.  Far  later,  when  many  battles  have 
been  fought  and  won,  new  energy  stored,  new 
wisdom  gained,  the  old  thought  rises  again,  but 
rises  in  the  Body  of  the  Resurrection.  In  the 
118th  canto,  the  poet  broods  once  more  over  the 
mighty  energy  of  nature,  and  the  passage  into 
seemingly  ceaseless  death  of  cycle  after  cycle  of 
her  creatures.  But  now  her  "seeming-random 
forms"  have  become  to  him  the  precursors  of  a 
higher  being,  through  all  her  waste  is  manifest  a 
purpose,  and  human  love  and  truth  are  no  longer 
"dying  nature's  earth  and  lime,"  but  the  immor- 
tal end  of  creation.  The  thought  of  evolution  has 
come  to  Tennyson:  in  it  he  finds  the  solution  of 
the  seeming  paradox  of  nature.  It  has  reached 
him,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  not  by  the  toilsome 
process  of  reasoning,  but  by  deep  subconscious 
processes.  The  fear  of  waste  has  turned  to  the 
sense  of  the  generosity  of  life,  and  the  intellectual 
triumph  of  the  poem  is  won. 


290  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

This  method  of  double  interpretation  is  at  the 

very  heart  of  the  intellectual  life  of  Tennyson :  it 

is  the  key  to  his  spiritual  victory.     Some- 

ture  of         times  the  aspect  of  faith  comes  to  him  as 

Faith. 

a  gift,  after  long  and  seemingly  remote 
brooding.  Again,  and  perhaps  more  often,  it  is 
won  by  deliberate  and  resolute  choice.  In  an 
open  question,  he  claims  the  right  to  the  hypothe- 
sis of  consolation.  It  is  easy  for  either  the  ascetic 
or  the  cynical  impulse  to  brand  him  as  insincere : 
yet  effective  life  must  be  lived  on  some  assump- 
tion. To  refuse  to  affirm  is,  in  the  practical  sphere 
of  conduct,  if  not  in  the  subtler  sphere  of  thought, 
equivalent  to  denial,  and  denial  runs  the  risk  of 
the  lie  as  keenly  as  the  fullest  assumption  of  faith. 
"The  Two  Voices,"  precursor  of  "In  Memo- 
riam,"  turns  a  searchlight  on  Tennyson's  attitude. 
It  shows  a  nature  that,  setting  towards  faith,  is 
open  to  every  whisper  of  doubt  and  fear.  The 
victory  of  the  poem,  though  exquisitely  rendered, 
is  timorous  and  faint.  Such  as  it  is,  it  consists 
in  pure  appeal  to  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  The 
voice  of  denial  has  forced  upon  the  soul  all  pos- 
sible grounds  of  despair:  the  futility  of  life,  the 
uncertainty  of  the  Beyond,  the  universal  darkness 
in  which  we  live  and  move.  Suddenly,  the  out- 
raged soul  turns  upon  its  tormenter,  reverses  the 
argument,  and  silences  the  sneer :  — 

"  If  all  be  dark,  vague  voice,  I  said, 

These  things  are  wrapped  in  doubt  and  dread, 
Nor  canst  thou  tell  the  dead  are  dead." 

Since  life  may  be  eternal,  it  must  be  noble.     Be- 


TENNYSON  AND  "IN  MEMORIAM"    291 

lief  being  at  least  as  rational  as  denial,  those  high, 
intangible  instincts  that  touch  us  with  mystic 
gleams  beyond  the  ken  of  reason,  turn  the  scale 
towards  the  life  of  faith.  In  like  manner,  the 
greater  poem,  "In  Memo'riam,"  is  at  last  able  to 
recognize  the  very  darkness  as  divine.  Even  in 
the  night  of  despair,  the  Power  has  been  with 
him,  — 

"  Which  makes  the  darkness  and  the  light, 
And  dwells  not  in  the  light  alone."  l 

"And  out  of  darkness  come  the  hands 
That  reach  through  Nature,  moulding  men."  2 

"I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt,"  sings  Emer- 
son's Brahma :  Tennyson  too  can  hail  Him :  — 

"  That  which  we  all  invoke  to  bless, 

Our  dearest  faith,  our  ghastliest  doubt ; 

He,  They,  One,  All ;  within,  without ; 

The  Power  in  darkness  whom  we  guess."  3 

Doubt  has  become  to  him  the  source  and  mother 
of  faith.  The  poets  of  art  mark  a  brief  and  fu- 
tile abandonment  of  the  quest  for  truth:  Tenny- 
son resumes  the  main  road  of  pilgrimage. 

Neither  Clough  nor  Arnold  is  more  essentially 
agnostic  in  thought  than  he.  His  separation  from 
them  is  not  in  temperament  nor  in  method,  but 
in  conclusion.  He  marks  the  final  stage  of  ag- 
nosticism, feeling  its  way  towards  faith.  All  three 
poets  assume  the  impotence  of  the  reason.  Arnold 
elects  eternal  doubt,  allows  it  to  pass  into  practi- 
cal denial,  and  shapes  life  and  thought,  when  all 
1  Canto  XCVI.  2  Canto  CXXIV.  8  Ibid. 


292  THE    POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

is  said,  on  a  negative  assumption.  Clough,  waver- 
ing, entertains  in  reverent  thought  the  positive 
hypothesis,  but  never  surrenders  himself  to  it. 
Tennyson  chooses  belief,  deliberately  forms  his  life 
on  positive  lines,  and,  led  by  will  and  feeling,  en- 
ters the  great  world  of  spiritual  faith.  "In  Me- 
moriam"  is  the  central  and  most  representative 
poem  of  the  century:  it  is  the  climax  of  the 
Poetry  of  Search. 

5.  Decadence,  or  Promise  ? 

We  have  traced  the  advance  of  a  poetry  of  dis- 
illusion. At  once  free  from  spiritual  convention, 
and  intent  upon  spiritual  conviction,  our  modern 
poets  are  of  necessity  sad.  It  were  easy  to  inter- 
pret even  the  earlier  poets  in  a  pessimistic  sense ; 
and  if  unclouded  joy  is  rare  among  them,  far 
more  are  those  of  the  Age  of  Search  poets  of  sor- 
row. Never  surely  was  there  verse  so  uncom- 
forted  as  that  of  Clough  and  Arnold,  so  clear  alike 
in  its  expression  of  spiritual  need  and  its  failure 
to  find  spiritual  solace.  In  the  poets  of  the  RBS- 
thetic  reaction,  the  whole  cycle  of  beauty  and  feel- 
ing proves  inadequate  to  exclude  the  clash  of 
problem  and  the  cry  of  death.  The  poetry  of 
Tennyson,  grave,  steady,  and  delicately  wrought, 
yet  springs  from  no  fount  of  inward  joy.  The 
highest  point  reached  by  the  poetry  of  search  is 
his  desperate  escape  from  the  world  where  thought 
denies,  to  the  world  where  faith  asserts.  Is  ours, 
then,  a  poetry  of  failure?  Is  a  minor  strain  all 
that  the  men  of  the  future  may  hope  for,  to°  accom- 


DECADENCE,   OR  PROMISE?  293 

pany  the  stir  of  human  life?  So  thinks  M.  Bour- 
get.  This  eloquent  and  sensitive  critic  has  a  fine 
passage,  in  which,  commenting  on  the  complete 
agnosticism  of  modern  literature,  he  allows  him- 
self to  peer  into  the  future.  He  speaks  of  the 
future  of  the  race  under  the  guidance  of  Science : 
science  which  "renders  impossible  any  belief  in 
supernatural  revelation,  and  at  the  same  time 
proclaims  itself  impotent  to  solve  that  problem 
which  revelation  formerly  solved."  "Some  peo- 
ple," writes  M.  Bourget,  "have  imagined  a  cure 
for  this  singular  new  crisis  with  which  we  are 
threatened,  by  imagining  a  humanity  freed  from 
interest  in  the  Beyond,  and  indifferent  to  what  is 
called  in  scholastic  terms  the  Absolute.  This  is 
a  gratuitous  hypothesis,  little  consistent  with  the 
general  advance  of  human  thought. 

"We  have  the  right  to  predict,  on  the  contrary, 
that  humanity  as  it  proceeds  will  refine  its  ner- 
vous sensibility  more  and  more,  and  will  develop 
increasingly  that  blase  melancholy  of  souls  whom 
no  pleasure  satisfies,  and  who  long  in  their  insati- 
able ardor  to  quench  their  thirst  at  an  infinite 
source.  It  is  probable  that,  facing  the  final  bank- 
ruptcy of  scientific  knowledge,  many  of  these  souls 
will  fall  into  despair  such  as  would  have  seized 
Pascal  had  he  been  deprived  of  faith.  The  great 
black  hole  whence  we  emerge  in  pain,  only  to  fall 
into  it  in  pain  once  more,  will  yawn  before  them, 
forever  black  and  forever  empty.  Then  will  re- 
volts break  forth,  tragic,  such  as  no  other  epoch 
has  known.  Life  will  be  too  intolerable  with  the 


294  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

conviction  that  comprehension  is  over,  and  that  the 
same  question-mark  is  placed  forever  on  the  hori- 
zon. There  would  be  nothing  surprising  if  a  sect 
of  nihilists  were  in  those  times  to  organize  itself, 
possessed  with  a  rage  of  destruction  such  as  those 
alone  can  imagine  who  have  known  the  gulfs  of 
metaphysical  agony.  To  know  that  one  cannot 
know,  to  be  sure  that  one  can  never  be  sure,  —  ah ! 
what  atrocious  anguish,  which,  spread  like  an  epi- 
demic among  millions  of  men,  might  easily  become 
the  principle  of  a  sort  of  crusade  of  destruction. 
In  those  times,  if  the  nightmare  which  I  have  just 
evoked  should  be  realized,  other  souls,  gentler  and 
more  inclined  to  a  happy  interpretation  of  destiny, 
would  doubtless  oppose  to  pessimism  in  revolt  an 
optimism  sadly  tranquil.  If  the  enigma  of  the 
universe  is  unknowable,  it  might  be  solved  in  a 
way  that  would  harmonize  with  the  totality  of  our 
moral  needs  and  sentimental  demands.  The  con- 
soling hypothesis  has  as  much  chance  of  being 
true  as  the  hypothesis  of  despair.  We  have  even 
to-day,  in  M.  Kenan,  a  complete  example  of  the 
religious  impulses  which  would  rally  the  vague 
believers  of  that  cruel  age;  and  who  would  dare 
to  affirm  that  the  act  of  faith  without  formula,  to 
which  the  disabused  optimism  of  this  historian  of 
our  dying  religion  even  now  amounts,  does  not 
express  the  essence  of  that  which  shall  endure, 
immortal  and  pious,  in  the  superb  and  miserable 
temple  of  the  human  heart?" 

"Deceived  by  the  malicious  genius  of  nature," 
says  M.  Bourget  again,  "we  press  towards  death, 


DECADENCE,  OR  PROMISE?  295 

believing  that  we  press  towards  progress."  "A 
universal  nausea  in  the  presence  of  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  this  world  stirs  the  being  of  Slavs,  Ger- 
mans, and  Latins,  and  manifests  itself,  in  the  first 
by  nihilism,  in  the  second  by  pessimism,  among 
ourselves  by  solitary  and  bizarre  forms  of  hysteria. 
The  murderous  rage  of  the  conspirators  of  St. 
Petersburg,  the  books  of  Schopenhauer,  the  furi- 
ous conflagrations  of  the  Commune,  and  the  fierce 
misanthropy  of  the  naturalistic  novel  —  I  inten- 
tionally choose  the  most  widely  separated  exam- 
ples —  all  reveal  this  same  spirit  of  negation  of  life 
which  darkens  more  each  day  our  western  civiliza- 
tion. Doubtless  we  are  yet  far  from  the  suicide 
of  the  planet,  that  supreme  desire  of  the  theorists 
of  sorrow.  But  slowly,  surely,  is  developed  a 
belief  in  the  bankruptcy  of  nature,  which  promises 
to  become  the  sinister  faith  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, if  science  or  an  invasion  of  barbarians  does 
not  save  a  humanity  which  has  reflected  overmuch 
from  the  lassitude  of  its  own  thought. 

"It  would  be  a  chapter  of  comparative  psychol- 
ogy as  interesting  as  it  is  inedited  which  should 
trace,  stage  by  stage,  the  march  of  the  different 
European  races  towards  this  tragic  negation  of  all 
the  efforts  of  all  the  ages." 

It  is,  then,  this  march  towards  "the  suicide  of 
the  planet"  which  is  to  be  traced  through  our 
modern  English  verse  ?  We  recognize  many  notes 
in  this  eloquent  description.  Were  we  forced  to 
judge  from  the  two  minor  schools  of  Victorian  verse 
whether  ours  is  the  poetry  of  decadence  or  of  prom- 


296  THE  POETRY  OF  SEARCH 

ise,  the  answer,  though  reluctant,  would  be  sure. 
In  its  fervent,  languid  beauty,  its  conscious  purism 
of  phrase,  its  disintegration  and  incoherence,  the 
stamp  of  a  literary  decadence  rests  upon  it.  Our 
modern  poetry  is  the  product  of  fifty  years  during 
which  denial  of  spiritual  truth  in  the  name  of  sci- 
ence was  the  loudest  if  not  the  deepest  sound.  The 
calm  tone  of  scientific  denial,  the  rage  against  life, 
the  gentle  sadness  of  those  who  "choose  the  con- 
soling hypothesis,"  —  all  these  are  known  to  us. 
The  search  of  God  is  never  abandoned  by  our 
poetry:  but  so  far  as  we  have  yet  followed  it,  a 
low  "perhaps  "  is  the  clearest  note  of  consolation. 
It  maybe  that  M.  Bourget's  "bankruptcy"  awaits 
us  all. 

Meanwhile,  we  may  remember  that  the  Asia- 
Myth  of  the  young  Shelley  does  not  end  in  the 
cave  of  Demogorgon.  The  journey  of  his  Lady 
of  Life,  in  whom  we  found  the  Spirit  of  Poetry, 
proves  a  pilgrimage  of  redemption,  and  ends  on 
the  mountain -summit  where  she  is  transfigured  in 
the  glory  that  shall  enkindle  the  world.  Has  the 
English  poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century  known 
no  power  to  redeem,  no  height  of  vision? 


VII 

THE  TRIUMPH   OF  THE   SPIRIT 

1.   The  Vision  Attained 

TRIUMPH,  or  failure?  Which  is  the  conclu- 
sion? Out  of  the  century  which  has  developed 
plutocracy  in  government,  competition  in  indus- 
try, agnosticism  in  religion,  out  of  the  century 
that  has  first  named  materialism,  what  is  the  mes- 
sage of  the  poets?  A  glad  chorus  of  spiritual 
victory?  Or  a  low  cry  of  the  imagination,  bewail- 
ing the  loss  of  the  soul? 

Our  poets  have  been  as  great  as  ourselves.  The 
singers  of  a  democratic  age,  they  have  in  no  case 
dominated  their  time  as  Dante  dominated  the  four- 
teenth century,  Shakespeare  the  sixteenth.  Tak- 
ing them  all  in  all,  they  have  expressed  it.  Truly 
our  brothers,  no  mood  is  known  to  us  that  they 
have  not  rendered ;  and  all  that  has  been  vital  to 
modern  experience  may  be  studied  in  their  work. 

All  the  influences  of  the  century  have  passed 
into  the  being  of  the  poets.  The  spirit  of  science 
has  entered  their  very  blood,  harmonizing  the  in- 
stincts of  the  imagination  with  the  conclusions  of 
thought,  widening  poetic  scope,  and  revealing  the 
innate  dignity  of  law.  The  social  passion  has  led 
them  from  deeper  reverence  for  the  collective  life 


298         THE   TRIUMPH   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

to  keener  knowledge  of  the  separate  soul.  The 
new  altruism  has  made  itself  felt  in  their  ideal  of 
redemption,  while  at  the  same  time  a  spirit  of  more 
searching  inquiry  has  invaded  the  soul.  Widened 
knowledge  of  the  past  has  opened  to  the  poets 
roads  trodden  by  many  generations,  where  travel  is 
swift  if  not  smooth  to  the  feet  of  the  searchers  for 
truth.  A  vivid  enthusiasm  for  fact  has  strength- 
ened our  poetry  by  making  it,  not  the  esoteric  ex- 
pression of  ideal  or  exceptional  experience,  but 
the  broad  and  homely  story  of  actual  life,  absurd 
often  yet  divine  forever.  Uncompromising,  finally, 
in  the  region  of  fact,  our  poets  have  been  equally 
audacious  in  the  region  of  the  idea  ;  analyzing 
the  soul  with  new  fervor,  they  have  revealed  in 
it  new  subtleties,  and,  casting  aside  all  spiritual 
conventions,  have  sought  unwearying  for  spiritual 
truth. 

Of  all  this  poetry  —  enriched  by  science,  by  demo- 
cracy, by  the  new  learning  —  what  is  the  outcome  ? 
Can  we  trace  through  it  any  continuous  spiritual 
progress?  Is  it,  in  any  sense,  an  organic  whole? 
Or  must  we  find  in  it,  with  all  its  varied  power, 
the  sporadic  individualism  of  an  age  of  disintegra- 
tion and  denial? 

"Where  there  is  no  vision,  the  people  perish," 
and  even  before  the  people,  the  poets  must  die. 
But  our  poetry  is  not  dead.  Its  very  sequence, 
practically  unbroken  for  a  hundred  years,  its  superb 
vigor  and  variety,  its  hold  on  the  English  world, 
prove  that  a  vision  has  been  known  to  us.  The 
poets  at  times  have  denied  it;  but  thus  to  deny, 


THE    VISION  ATTAINED  299 

they  must  first  have  seen.  Our  modern  poets 
emerge  from  that  great  spiritual  movement  which 
has  been  the  central  and  deepest  fact  of  modern 
life.  Strongly  influenced  by  science,  by  demo- 
cracy, and  by  the  past,  it  is  the  striving  of  the 
Spirit  which  makes  itself  supremely  felt,  through 
even  the  most  sensuous  or  the  most  inert.  Sor- 
rowful indeed  they  are  often,  with  a  restless  pain, 
but  their  very  sorrow  is  the  measure  of  their  sight ; 
for  in  an  awakened  age  that  seeks  complacency 
in  vain,  doubt,  question,  and  despair  all  find  their 
place  as  minor  yet  essential  witnesses  to  the  su- 
premacy of  Soul. 

But  we  may  claim  far  more  than  indirect  evi- 
dence. Failure,  as  a  whole,  is  not  the  message  of 
our  poetry.  Whatever  despondency  may  invade  or 
at  times  master  the  poets  of  the  revolution,  their 
central  temper  as  their  strongest  instinct  is  a  wide 
hopefulness.  However  spiritual  pain  and  restless- 
ness may  control  the  minor  schools  of  Victorian 
poetry,  questioning  in  the  greater  poets  leads  di- 
rect from  doubt  to  faith.  In  the  clearest  song 
both  of  the  age  of  the  revolution  and  the  age  of 
Victoria  a  spiritual  vision  is  not  only  implied  but 
revealed:  and  our  great  singers  have  been  our 
great  believers. 

Our  poetry  rounds  the  full  circle.  The  hope 
that  animates  the  poets  of  the  revolution  is  flashed 
upon  them  as  intuition.  Their  faith  in  freedom, 
their  love  of  man,  are  not  results  wrested  from 
doubt  by  long  experience,  they  are  instincts 
breathed  from  the  very  air.  As  the  ideals  of  the 


300         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT       \ 
j 
time  faded,  or  were  hidden  by  earthly  vapors,  the 

song  of  the  revolution  was  stilled.  The  scientific 
spirit  appeared,  emphasizing  induction  and  devel- 
opment in  the  sphere  of  thought:  and  the  epoch 
of  joyous  recognition  was  followed  by  a  long  pe- 
riod of  verification,  when  "the  intellectual  power 
through  words  and  things  went  sounding  on  a  dim 
and  perilous  way."  Hope  was  the  word  of  the 
first  of  the  century;  but  the  word  of  its  central 
years  was  doubt. 

At  last  poetry  works  itself  clear  again.  It  es- 
capes from  the  shadow  country  of  introspection 
and  the  dream  world  of  art  into  the  fresh  sunlight  of 
fact  and  faith.  Tennyson  and  Browning,  the  long 
journey  of  induction  at  an  end,  reach  triumphantly 
the  land  of  their  desires.  Tennyson,  as  we  know, 
arrives  after  long  pilgrimage  in  the  twilight;  but 
when  he  enters,  he  is  like  his  own  Sir  Lancelot, 
blessed  by  sight  of  the  distant,  shrouded  glory  of 
the  Holy  Grail.  Browning,  his  great  compeer,  has 
never  forfeited  the  heavenly  vision.  He  has  auda- 
ciously explored  the  country  of  darkness,  but  faith 
has  guided  him  into  its  blackest  gloom.  Despite 
his  keen  insight  into  doubt,  and  his  masterly 
analyses  of  spiritual  failure,  his  conviction  of  truth 
lever  wavers.  Wordsworth  at  the  beginning  of 
;he  century  marks  the  highest  level  of  spiritual 
conviction,  Shelley  of  spiritual  rapture;  Browning 
s  supreme,  alike  in  conviction  and  in  rapture,  at 
;he  end. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  POETS  301 

• 

2.  The  Faith  of  the,  Poets  of  the  Revolution 
A  high,  solitary  idealism  marks  the  first  epoch 
of  our  poetry :  the  central  epoch  is  marked  by  a 
great  realistic  movement  towards  the  verseCon- 
crowded  levels  of  humanity.  It  is  natu-  temPlative- 
ral  that  varying  attitudes  control  the  two  epochs. 
In  the  early  verse  of  the  century,  we  breathe  the 
atmosphere  of  peace.  By  a  curious  paradox,  this 
poetry,  offspring  of  a  tumultuous  historic  event, 
is  rarely  or  never  militant.  Perhaps  the  external 
stir  of  the  revolution  was  not  of  its  essence  but  a 
superficial  accident ;  and  the  deep  and  silent  causes 
which  guide  the  imagination  were  rather  a  quick- 
ening of  life,  a  widening  of  sympathy,  a  develop- 
ment of  sensitiveness,  for  which  the  times  were 
ripe.  One  must  realize  the  world  before  seeking 
to  conquer  it.  It  was  the  realization  of  a  new 
earth  which  occupied  the  poets  of  the  revolution. 

Hence  they  are,  in  central  temper,  receptive. 
The  ideal  to  which  they  summon  us,  which  in  its 
highest  moments  they  attain,  is  that  of  the  con- 
templative life.  Whether  we  pause  in  the  sweet 
hill-pasture  to  hearken  to  the  Highland  girl  with 
her  echoing  music,  or  wander  through  the  forest- 
shadows  which  may  at  any  instant  relieve  the  moon- 
raiment  of  Cynthia,  our  spirits  watch  and  wait. 
Even  the  restlessness  of  Shelley,  least  tranquil 
among  poets,  is  never  active :  it  searches  but  never 
/  battles.  Union  with  some  vast  power  which  shall 
;  still  his  spirit  with  its  swift  onward  sweep  is  the 
.quest  of  his  tremulous  aspiration. 


302        THE   TRIUMPH   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Keats  is  the  most  perfect  exponent  of  the  spirit 
of  contemplation  on  its  aesthetic  side.  The  "  Ode 
on  a  Grecian  Urn,"  the  "Nightingale,"  "To  Au- 
tumn," "To  Melancholy,"  all  the  handful  of  brief, 
immortal  lyrics,  heavy  with  the  weight  of  their 
own  loveliness,  are  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  im- 
passioned contemplation.  The  beauty  of  these 
poems  is  able  indeed  "to  teaze  us  out  of  thought 
as  doth  eternity."  Endymion,  Lysias,  young 
Porphyro,  enthralled  by  the  spell,  move  dizzy  as 
with  sleep  through  a  visionary  world;  bound  in 
their  dreams  hand  and  foot.  Let  one  of  these 
dream-lovers  move  or  act,  and  lo!  he  melts  into 
the  rude  morning  air  o'f  modern  fact.  They  are 
creatures  composed  of  sensations,  and  sensations 
how  bewilderingly  sweet ! 

"Endymion  could  not  speak,  but  gazed  on  her, 
And  listened  to  the  wind,  that  now  did  stir 
About  the  crisped  oaks  full  drearily, 
Yet  with  as  sweet  a  softness  as  might  be 
Remember'd  from  its  velvet  summer  song."  l 

Such  passion  for  fullness  of  Beauty  must  needs 
turn  to  Sorrow :  — 

"  O  Melancholy,  linger  here  awhile  ! 

O  Music,  Music,  breathe  despondently ! 
O  Echo,  Echo,  from  some  sombre  isle 

Unknown,  Lethean,  sigh  to  us  —  O  sigh ! 
Spirits  in  grief,  lift  up  your  heads,  and  smile ; 

Lift  up  your  heads,  sweet  spirits,  heavily, 
And  make  a  pale  light  in  your  cypress  glooms, 
Tinting  with  silver  wan  your  marble  tombs."  2 

The  conception  of  perfect  happiness  is  found  in 
this  picture  of  the  Elysian  fields  of  the  poets,  with 

1  Endymion.  2  Ode  to  Melancholy. 


THE  FAITH   OF  THE  POETS  303 

its  delicate  appeal  to  the  luxury  of  every  receptive 
instinct :  — 

"  Bards  of  passion  and  of  mirth, 
Ye  have  left  your  souls  on  earth ! 
Have  ye  souls  in  heaven,  too, 
Doubled-lived  in  regions  new  ? 
Yes,  and  those  of  heaven  commune 
With  the  spheres  of  sun  and  moon ; 
With  the  noise  of  fountains  wondrous ; 
And  the  parle  of  voices  thund'rous ; 
With  the  whisper  of  heaven's  trees 
And  one  another,  in  soft  ease 
Seated  on  Elysian  lawns, 
Browsed  by  none  but  Dian's  fawns ; 
Underneath  large  blue-bells  tented, 
Where  the  daisies  are  rose-scented, 
And  the  rose  herself  has  got 
Perfume  which  on  earth  is  not ; 
Where  the  nightingale  doth  sing 
Not  a  senseless,  tranced  thing, 
But  divine  melodious  truth ; 
Philosophic  numbers  smooth ; 
Tales  and  golden  histories 
Of  heaven  and  its  mysteries." 1 

If  Keats  gives  us  contemplation  aesthetic,  it  is 
Wordsworth  who  gives  us  the  ideal  of  contempla- 
tion ethical.  High-priest  of  a  new  gospel,  he  bids 
men  come  forth  from  science  and  from  art,  dowered 
with  a  heart  which  watches  and  receives.  A  deep 
and  healing  Peace  possesses  us  as  we  breathe  the 
air  of  his  poems. 

"  The  chasm  of  sky  above  my  head 
Is  heaven's  prof  oundest  azure  :  no  domain 
For  fickle,  short-lived  clouds  to  occupy 
Or  to  pass  through ;  but  rather  an  abyss 

1  Ode  [written  on  a  blank  page  before  Beaumont  and  Fletch- 
er's tragi-comedy,  The  Fair  Maid  of  the  Inn]. 


304        THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

Wherein  the  everlasting  stars  abide, 

And  whose  soft  gloom  and  boundless  depth  might  tempt 

The  curious  eye  to  dwell  on  them  by  day."  1 

Wordsworth  gives  us,  in  noble  lines,  the  sum- 
mary of  the  themes  on  which  his  pure  imagination 
sought  to  dwell :  — 

"  Of  Truth,  of  Grandeur,  Beauty,  Love,  and  Hope, 
And  melancholy  Fear  subdued  by  Faith, 
Of  blessed  consolations  in  distress, 
Of  moral  strength  and  intellectual  power, 
Of  joy  in  widest  commonalty  spread, 
I  would  give  utterance  in  numerous  verse."  2 

Here,  to  the  sanest  if  not  the  greatest  poet  of  the 
revolutionary  period,  is  the  gamut  of  human  expe- 
rience. We  find  in  his  summary  no  hint  of  action 
and  no  call  to  fight.  For  him  is  "  the  harvest 
of  a  quiet  eye,  that  broods  and  sleeps  on  his  own 
heart."  The  highest  virtue  is  to  Wordsworth  For- 
titude. Endurance  under  all  shocks  of  change  and 
pain,  —  this  is  the  triumph  achieved  both  by  a  rug- 
ged old  Leech-gatherer  and  by  that  moonlight- 
creature,  Emily:  — 

"A  soul,  by  force  of  sorrows  high 
Uplifted  to  the  purest  sky 
Of  undisturbed  mortality." 

The  mighty  sorrow  hath  been  borne, 
And  she  is  thoroughly  forlorn, 
Her  soul  doth  in  itself  stand  fast, 
Sustained  by  memory  of  the  past 
And  strength  of  reason  ;  held  above 
The  infirmities  of  mortal  love, 
Undaunted,  lofty,  calm,  and  stable, 
And  awfully  impenetrable."  3 

1  The  Excursion,  Book  III.  2  The  Recluse. 

8  The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  POETS  305 

Such  the  ideal  for  sorrow,  an  ideal  admitting  no 
self-assertion,  no  activity,  even  of  the  inner  self, 
stern  as  the  old  Stoic  gospel  in  the  pure  intensity 
of  its  calm.  Passive  thus  in  sorrow,  Wordsworth's 
ideal  is  passive  also  in  joy.  He  can  delight  in 
playful  sympathy  with  the  winsomeness  of  children 
or  flowers,  he  can  also  rise  into  most  solemn  ec- 
stasy. He  is  familiar  with  that  state  of  exalted 
trance  which  as  known  to  the  mystic  of  every  age 
and  country  is  the  reward  of  passionate  stillness. 
Well  does  he  know 

"  That  serene  and  blessed  mood 
In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on, 
Until,  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul ; 
While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  with  the  power 
Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things."  1 

"The  very  heart  of  quietness"  is  in  the  poetry 
of  Wordsworth.  "The  spiritual  presences  of  ab- 
sent things  "  were  ever  with  him,  as  he  recollected 
in  tranquillity  emotions  and  experiences  which  for 
many  a  lesser  soul  would  have  caused  tranquillity 
to  flee  forever.  He  abides  upon  those  heights 
where,  as  Goethe  tells  us,  lies  repose.  As  Dante 
gives  us  contemplation  glorified  in  heaven,  so 
Wordsworth  gives  us  contemplation  transfigured 
on  earth.  In  his  work  the  peculiar  receptive  tem- 
per of  his  age  reaches  fullest  and  loveliest  expres- 
sion. 

1  Lines,  composed  a  few  miles  above  Tintern  Abbey,  July  13, 

1798. 


306         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

The  spirit  of  contemplation  which  pervades  our 

early  modern  verse  finds  widest  scope  and  happiest 

inspiration  in  the  new  converse  with  na- 

TheCon- 

tempiation  ture.  buch  converse,  "strong  and  sana- 
tive," to  use  Wordsworth's  fine  phrase, 
renewed  in  men  that  temper  of  wonder  which  may 
indeed  sink  into  curiosity,  but  may  also  rise  into 
adoration.  Thus  it  led  direct  to  new  spiritual  in- 
tuitions, and  became  the  very  food  of  faith.  But 
its  first  work  was  simpler.  The  wide  return  to 
nature  sprang  at  first  from  an  instinctive  search 
for  healing.  Men  craved  "the  blessed  mood  in 
which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight  of  all  this 
unintelligible  world  is  lightened."  It  is  peculiarly 
touching  that  this  modern  world  of  ours,  oppressed 
as  no  other  age  by  the  burden  of  its  own  self -con- 
sciousness, should  have  been  first  fully  to  express 
the  restorative  power  of  the  vast,  impersonal  life 
of  nature.  The  poets  have  been  our  guides  and 
priests  in  her  great  temple.  "The  silence  that 
is  in  the  starry  sky,  the  sleep  that  is  among  the 
lonely  hills,"  bends  over  their  work.  From  them 
we  have  learned  to  betake  ourselves  in  moments  of 
exhaustion  to  "pure  organic  pleasures,"  to  escape 
from  fret  or  puzzle  as  we  stand  in  the  Eternal  Calm. 
And  in  times  of  despair  nature  can  bring  the  one 
blessing  —  oblivion.  The  groves  can  indeed,  as 
Wordsworth  well  knew, 

"  Interpose  the  covert  of  their  shade 
Even  as  a  sleep,  between  the  heart  of  man 
And  outward  trouble." 1 

1  The  Prelude,  Book  I. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  POETS  307 

But  nature  is  far  more  than  refuge  from  the 
Byronic  ennui  of  passion  or  more  modern  ennui 
of  thought:  she  breathes  a  fresh  delight,  positive 
and  free.  In  this  delight  the  receptive  spirits  of 
the  early  modern  poets  bathed  joyously.  Their 
sensitiveness  to  her  blithesome  gayety  was  a  gra- 
cious gift,  indeed,  to  a  weary  and  serious  world. 
It  was  a  gift  not  new,  but  long  forgotten.  The 
affection  for  nature  in  Cowper  and  Thompson,  pio- 
neers of  our  modern  feeling,  is  entirely  sincere,  but 
it  is  also  eminently  staid.  Never  for  a  moment 
does  it  lose  sight  of  its  own  dignity.  It  is  founded 
on  the  recognition  of  use  rather  than  of  beauty, 
and  never  gets  beyond  a  tone  of  mingled  conde- 
scension and  respect.  Abandon  is  unknown  to  its 
well-considered  blank  verse.  A  new  note  is  sound- 
ed when  Shelley  can  sing,  with  the  easy  lilt  of  the 
bird, 

"  I  love  all  that  thou  lovest, 

Spirit  of  Delight ; 
The  fresh  earth  in  new  leaves  drest, 

And  the  starry  night, 
Autumn  evening  and  the  morn 

When  the  golden  mists  are  born ; 
I  love  snows  and  all  the  forms 

Of  the  radiant  frost. 
I  love  waves  and  winds  and  storms, 

Everything  almost 
Which  is  Nature's  and  may  be 

Untainted  by  man's  misery." 1 

Equal  rapture,  more  serene,  may  be  found  in 
Wordsworth,  Keats,  and  Coleridge.  The  poets 
turn  to  nature  as  exiles  to  the  dear  land  of  child- 

1  Song. 


308        THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

hood,  and  something  of  the  buoyant  ecstasy  of 
youth  renewed  and  hope  fulfilled  sounds  through 
their  verse. 

The  perception  of  beauty  is  of  course  the  chief 
and  first  happiness  of  the  contemplative  soul  be- 
fore nature,  and  this  very  perception  is  spirit- 
ual; for  if  poetry  is,  as  Wordsworth  describes 
it,  the  impassioned  expression  which  is  on  the 
countenance  of  science,  then  beauty  is  the  impas- 
sioned expression  which  is  on  the  countenance. of 
force.  Existing  quite  out  of  the  chain  of  natural 
causation,  it  gives  mysterious  challenge  and  per- 
petual witness  that  man  is  not  only  nourishable 
body  evolved  from  the  brute,  but  perceptive  soul 
devolved  from  God.  But  it  is  with  less  of  theory 
than  of  happy  instinct  that  the  poets  rejoice  in  the 
fair  world.  This  instinct  is  quickened  and  guided 
to  higher  reach  by  that  modern  intuition  which 
sees  in  nature  less  a  machine  or  a  picture  than 
an  organism,  throbbing  with  hidden  and  varied 
life,- 

"Not  unrelated,  unallied, 
But  to  each  thought  and  thing  allied 
Is  perfect  nature's  every  part, 
Rooted  in  the  mighty  heart."  1 

And  so,  feeling  in  the  world  of  beauty  Spirit  and 
Life,  the  contemplation  of  nature  becomes  pro- 
foundly religious,  and  leads  the  poetry  of  the  revo- 
lution to  its  highest  spiritual  victory  and  clearest 
vision  of  spiritual  truth. 

The  poets  of  the  day  were  ranged  under  varying 
1  Emerson,  Woodnotes. 


THE  FAITH   OF  THE  POETS  309 

religious  banners.      Wordsworth  was  a  technical 
Christian,  Shelleyaself-proclaimed  atheist,  Keats 
a  pagan  child  unaware  that  creeds  existed,  Byron 
a^scoffer  at  God  and  man.     Coleridge  belongs  to  a 
different  order,  but  his  creed,  sincere  in  his  prose, 
is  simply  aesthetic  in  his  poetry.       All  are  alike 
remote  from  true  Christianity;  for  the  formal  alle- 
giance of  Wordsworth  is  scarcely  more  vital  than 
the  crude  boyish  antipathies  of  Shelley.     Yet  their  \ 
religion,  though  not  Christian,  is  passionate  and  j 
profound.     Despite     their    different    labels,    one  • 
faith,  pure  and  strong,  beats  through  their  diverse  \ 
work  —  through  the  poetry  of  the  sedate  Westmore-/ 
land    proprietor,    as   through  that  of   the  erratic 
flame -like  soul  which  wandered  singing  through 
Italy  ^s  Piccarda  through  Paradise.     In  days  of 
a  degenerate  Church  and  an  unawakened  world,  it 
was   through  the  poets,   more  than  through  any 
other  force,  that  faith  returned  to  England. 

The  modern  religion  of  humanity,  which  so  hon- 
estly and  earnestly  seeks  to  supplant  the  NatUre  the 
religion    of    Christ,    stirs    in  the    strong  |odd°w°f 
racial   consciousness   that   pervades  them  and  in 
their  reverent  contemplation  of  man.     But  a  higher 
because  more    worshipful    religion    is    evident   in 
their  attitude  towards  the  natural  world. 

Turning  to  nature  first  for  rest  and  simple  joy, 
they  find  in  her  the  expression  of  a  kindred  life. 
But  this  life,  though  kindred,  is  inscrutable :  — 

"  And  this  loveliness  divinest 
Shrouds  thee,  wheresoe'er  thou  shinest  "  l 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  II.  Scene  5. 


310         THE    TRIUMPH   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

cries  Shelley  to  the  Anima  Mundi.     The  adoring 
recognition  of  a  living  Mystery  at  the  heart  of  the 
world  is  the  gift  to  faith  of  the  early  modern  poets. 
It  was  a  gift  made  unconsciously  but  therefore 
all  the  more  precious.     For  that  which   we  can 
fathom  we  never  can  adore.     Forgetfulness  of  this 
truth  is  the  central  sin  of  theology;  it  was  pe- 
culiarly the  sin  of  the  theology  of  the  eighteenth 
century.     A  dry  Christianity,  parched  by  analysis 
and  formulae,  had  for  the  time  being  chosen  to  be 
one  with  convention,  and  had  lost  power  over  men. 
It  was  the  work  of  the  poets  to  throw  aside  for- 
mulae that  they  might  recover  adoration.     "  In  won- 
der  begins  the    soul    of  man"  writes  some    one: 
"in  wonder  it  ends;  and  investigation  fills  up  the 
interspace."     It  is  a  new  and  spiritualized  wonder 
that  the  poets  restored  to  the  English  world.    Con- 
jfcrete  vision  is  essential  to  adoration,  yet  without 
/mystery  faith   collapses    into   dogma.      Restoring 
/  wonder,  the  poets  renewed  religion.     An  invented 
Deity,  a  Deity  of  the  library,  was  not  for  them. 
<They  looked  out  on  the  world,   expectant,  recep- 
)  tive;  and  in  the  world  of  nature  they  found  God. 
But  it  was  a  Deity  undefined.     The  intuition 
came  to  them  of  a  vast  spiritual  Power  behind  all 
natural  forms.     To  analyze  this  power  they  never 
attempted.     To  feel  it  moving  through  all  things 
sufficed  to  the  contemplative  soul. 

"  The  secret  strength  of  things 
Which  governs  thought,  and  to  the  infinite  dome 
Of  heaven  is  as  a  law,  inhabits  thee  "  1 

1  Mont  Blanc.     Lines  written  in  the  Vale  of  Chamouni. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  POETS  311 

cried  Shelley  to  Mont  Blanc.  This  "  secret  strength 
of  things,"  hidden  yet  living,  was  perceived  by  the 
poets  in  tiniest  as  in  mightiest  expressions  of  the 
great  whole  of  nature,  in  grass-blades  as  in  stars. 
Such  perception  grew  in  glory,  firmness,  and  as- 
surance till  it  finds  supreme  expression  in  those 
familiar  lines,  solemn  and  heavy  like  a  vast  white 
cloud  floating  on  high  in  the  Heaven  of  spiritual 
knowledge,  — 

"  I  have  felt 

A  Presence  that  upheld  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts :  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  Mind  of  Man  — 
A  Motion  and  a  Spirit  that  upheld 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  moves  through  all  things."  l 

We  know  how  the  whole  conception  of  Asia,  the 
"Light  of  Life,"  "Shadow  of  Beauty  unbeheld," 
is  that  of  the  Anima  Mundi,  the  Soul  of  the 
World.  The  "Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty,"  the 
"Adonais,"  the  "Epipsychidion,"  alike  reveal  to 
us  Shelley's  clear  apprehension  that  life  and  love, 
not  death  nor  chance,  were  the  hidden  strength 
which  burned,  unknown,  behind  the  veils  of  natu- 
ral beauty :  — 

"The  awful  shadow  of  some  unseen  Power 

Floats  though  unseen  amongst  us  —  visiting 
This  various  world  with  as  inconstant  wing 
As  summer  winds  that  creep  from  flower  to  flower, 
Like  moonbeams  that  behind  some  piny  mountain  shower. 

1  Tintern  Abbey. 


312         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

It  visits  with  inconstant  glance 
Each  human  heart  and  countenance ; 

Like  hues  and  harmonies  of  evening,  — 
Like  clouds  in  starlight  wildly  spread, 
Like  memory  of  music  fled,  — 
Like  aught  that  for  its  grace  may  be 

Dear,  and  yet  dearer  for  its  mystery. 

"  Thou  —  that  to  human  heart  art  nourishment 
Like  darkness  to  a  dying  flame, 
Depart  not  as  thy  shadow  came, 
Depart  not  —  lest  the  grave  should  be 
Like  life  and  fear,  a  dark  reality." l 

Thus  the  heart  of  the  poets  forebodes  a  mystery; 
and  the  mystery  is  holy  unto  the  Lord. 

"Truly  Thou    art  a  God  that  hidest  thyself." 

Such  is  their  cry,  exultant,  not  despairing.     In  the 

most  literal  and  fullest  meaning  of  the  word,  _they 

/  are  one  and  all  essentially  pantheists.     The  very 

r\\  breath  that  quickens  the  living  movement  of  their 

j  verse  is  the  intuition  of  a  Life-giving  Spirit;  and 

Nthis  Spirit,  reached  through  contemplation  of  na- 

/ture  rather  than  through  analysis  of  man,  is  infi- 

Vjiite  as  undefined. 

But  these  interpreters  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness of  their  age  wear  their  rue  with  a  difference? 
The  consciousness  of  a  central  spirit  of  love  and 
redemption  is  the  religion  of  Coleridge's  most 
vital  poem,  the  "Ancient  Mariner."  Byron's 
animus  is  destructive;  but  when,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Shelley,  he  becomes  for  brief  periods  reli- 
gious, he  shudders  in  the  presence  of  a  mighty 

1  Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  POETS  3 1/ 

Force  moving  through  the  natural  world.  The 
creed  of  Keats  is  brief :  — 

"  Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty :  that  is  all 

Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know."  1 

Of  conscious  religion  he  had  nonej  but  the  mani- 
festations of  an  archetypal  loveliness  float  through 
his  poems.  Wordsworth's  appeal  is  different  still. 
He  cries  aloud  in  solemn  words :  — 

11  Wisdom  and  Spirit  of  the  Universe, 

Thou  Soul  that  art  the  Eternity  of  Thought."  2 

While  Shelley  adores  the  One  Presence,  — 

"  Which  wields  the  world  with  never-wearied  love, 
Sustains  it  from  below,  and  kindles  it  above."  3 

Thus  to  Keats  the  Central  Mystery  appeals  su- 
premely as  beauty,  to  Wordsworth  as  wisdom, 
to  Shelleyjia  love.  Yet  love,  wisdom,  and  beauty 
are  only  symbols,  and  the  mystery  is  in  essence 
unknown. 

It  is  in  Wordsworth  and  Shelley  that  pantheism 
gains  its  highest  reach,  able  to  set  free  and  exalt 
the  spiritual  impulse.  To  both  alike,  religion  is 
wings  and  fire  of  life.  Their  faith  is  pure  as  that 
of  Emerson,  ethical  as  that  of  the  finest  natures 
in  Buddhism.  Living  utterly  in  the  Spirit,  to 
them  the  material  world  is  not  only  beauty  but 
symbol,  not  only  symbol  but  sacrament.  Words- 
worth tells  us  in  great  lines  how  first  the  intuition 
of  an  immanent  God  was  vouchsafed  to  his  boyish 
mind :  — 

1  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn.  2  The  Prelude,  Book  I. 

8  Adonais. 


314         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

1 '  I  was  only  then 

Contented,  when  with  bliss  ineffable 
I  felt  the  sentiment  of  Being  spread 
O'er  all  that  moves  and  all  that  seemeth  still ; 
O'er  all  that,  lost  beyond  the  reach  of  thought 
And  human  knowledge,  to  the  human  eye 
Invisible,  yet  liveth  to  the  heart ; 
O'er  all  that  leaps  and  runs,  and  shouts  and  sings, 
Or  beats  the  gladsome  air ;  o'er  all  that  glides 
Beneath  the  wave,  yea,  in  the  wave  itself, 
And  mighty  depth  of  waters.     Wonder  not 
If  high  the  transport,  great  the  joy  I  felt 
Communing  in  this  sort  through  earth  and  heaven 
With  every  form  of  creature,  as  it  looked 
Towards  the  Uncreated  with  a  countenance 
Of  adoration,  with  an  eye  of  love."  1 

Grand  though  this  passage  is,  pantheism  in  its 
purity  finds  perhaps  supreme  expression  in  Shel- 
ley's "Adonais,"  that  marvelous  singing  which 
draws  out  all  there  may  ever  be  of  consolation  to 
the  human  need  in  the  nebulous  radiant  faith  in 
nature  and  in  love. 

"  He  is  made  one  with  Nature  :  he  doth  bear 
His  part,  while  the  One  Spirit's  plastic  stress 
Sweeps  through  the  dull,  dense  world,  compelling  there 
All  new  successions  to  the  forms  they  wear, 
Torturing  the  unwilling  dross  that  bars  its  flight 
To  its  own  likeness,  as  each  mass  may  bear, 
And  bursting  in  its  beauty  and  its  might 
Through  trees  and  beasts  and  men  into  the  Heaven's  light."  2 

These  lines  mark  the  highest  spiritual  reach  of 
the  poetry  of  the  revolution. 

Thus  the  poets  fed  their  souls  on  contemplation 
till  it  turned  to  worship;  and  leading  men  away 

1  The  Prelude,  Book  II.  2  Adonais. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  POETS  315 

from  scholastic  formulae,  they  brought  them  to  de- 
light in  the  world  of  fact  and  beauty,  and  The  spirit 
hence  to  intuition  of  the  Immanent  God.    Giver! e 

The  noblest  thought  pos-sible  to  pure  contempla- 
tion is  gained  by  this  group  of  poets.  They  de- 
veloped the  receptive  powers  to  most  subtle  sensi- 
tiveness; they  received,  through  nature,  a  new  con- 
ception of  God.  Here  the  work  vouchsafed  them 
ended.  Its  limits  are  the  inevitable  limits  of  a 
contemplative  ideal.  Not  one  of  them  ever  reached 
the  perception  of  personality,  either  in  man  or 
God.  In  the  treatment  of  man,  Shelley  never 
went  beyond  an  abstraction,  Wordsworth  never 
beyond  a  type.  In  thought  of  God,  they  studi- 
ously avoided,  so  far  as  a  human  soul  can  achieve 
that  paradox,  all  human  qualities,  and  pause  with 
Mystery  and  Life.  It  is  this  deficient  sense  of 
personality  which  keeps  the  poetry  of  the  revolu- 
tion free  from  any  movement  towards  dramatic 
art.  The  deficiency  is  a  necessary  correlative  of 
the  attitude  of  contemplation;  it  is  the  invariable 
note  of  the  pantheist. 

There  is  a  wider  lack  in  their  poetry.  They 
lift  us  to  the  Mount  of  Vision,  but  they  furnish 
us  with  no  weapons  to  fight.  Pantheism  with 
them,  as  ever,  is  passive.  We  may  be  strength- 
ened to  endure  or  quickened  to  enjoy  by  Words- 
worth, Keats,  and  Shelley :  we  are  never  roused  to 
act.  They  beheld  in  a  sense  the  Beatific  Vision : 
it  was  not  for  them,  as  for  the  saints  in  the  Apoc- 
alypse, to  go  forth,  nerved  by  the  sight,  to  war- 
fare with  the  foes  of  God.  No  militant  trumpet- 


316        THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

notes  mingle  with  the  pure  music  of  their  hymns 
of  praise. 

The  absence  of  the  feeling  for  personality  and 
of  the  motif  of  action  clearly  define  the  range  and 
limits  of  the  poetry  of  the  time.  It  is  a  range 
quite  outside  the  region  of  all  then  recognized  as 
Christianity.  Yet  the  faith  of  the  poets,  so  far 
as  it  goes,  is  Apostolic  and  Catholic.  Taking  the 
great  poetry  of  the  revolution  from  first  to  last,  it 
has  one  essential  message.  It  bears  witness  to 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life. 

The  reassertion  of  the  Spirit  was  the  need  of 
the  age.  Theology  had  come  to  ignore  with  placid 
negligence  this  great  and  final  Article  of  the  Chris- 
tian Faith.  The  Church,  ignoring  it,  had  lost  the 
power  of  progress  and  turned  aristocrat,  clinging 
to  traditions  of  the  past,  instead  of  bold  with  faith 
for  the  future.  From  without  her,  not  from 
within,  was  to  come  the  renovating  power.  Sud- 
denly, with  mighty  wind  and  with  heat  of  visible 
flame,  the  Spirit  manifested  its  presence,  destruc- 
tive, life-giving,  holy.  Aroused  and  quickened, 
the  souls  of  the  poets  were  then  permitted  to  rec- 
ognize its  revelation,  not  only  in  an  historic  crisis, 
but  in  the  normal  energy  of  nature  and  of  man. 

[All  other  truth  was  veiled  from  them.  This  truth 
was  theirs.  Life  could  no  longer  be  mechanical 
nor  external :  it  was  the  breath  of  God.  A  world 
interpenetrated  by  a  Divine  and  Living  Soul !  this 
is  the  holy  vision  of  our  early  modern  verse.  Ee- 
vealer  of  the  Spirit!  This  is  the  greatest  title 
which  Wordsworth  or  Shelley  can  claim. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    317 
3.   The  Faith  of  the  Victorian  Poets 

t '  No,  when  the  fight  begins  within  himself, 
A  man  's  worth  something.     God  stoops  o'er  his  head, 
Satan  looks  up  between  his  feet.     Both  tug  ; 
He  's  left,  himself,  in  the  middle.     The  soul  wakes 
And  grows.     Prolong  that  battle  through  his  life. 
Never  leave  growing  till  the  life  to  come."  * 

The  note  of  a  new  age !     "  Im  Anf  ang  war  die 
That,"  muses  Faust,  paraphrasing  St.  John.     He 
would  find  scant   response   in  the    song  VerseMm- 
of  Wordsworth,  Keats,  or  Shelley:  his  tant* 
thought  is  echoed,  with  countless  changes,  in  the 
poems  of  Tennyson,  Browning,  and  Clough. 

Passion  for  "the  deed"  is  the  very  heart-throb 
of  the  tumultuous  poetry  of  the  Victorian  age. 
Written  on  the  very  morrow  of  revolution,  our 
Georgian  poetry,  even  when  tremulous  with  love 
of  man  and  freedom,  was  receptive  and  serene. 
The  cries  of  human  pain  it  heard  from  afar,  and 
wove  into  entrancing  melody.  Radical  in  ideal, 
it  clung  to  that  ideal  contented  with  hope,  scarcely 
seeking  realization.  Yet  in  its  pure  revolutionary 
idealism  was  latent  that  force  which  drove  its  suc- 
cessors out  into  the  actual  world.  There  they 
were  to  experience  and  depict  conflicting  passions ; 
to  learn  to  call  nothing  common  or  unclean ;  to  re- 
flect in  the  very  form  of  their  art  the  principles  of 
Democracy;  and  to  know  in  their  own  minds  that 
intensely  active  battle  whence  the  full  peace  of  the 
future  was  to  be  won.  Contemplation  was  the 
watchword  of  our  earlier  poetry :  action  is  the  cry 
of  that  which  presses  nearest  to  our  lives  to-day. 

1  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology. 


318         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

The  Georgian  poets  had  set  us  free  from  the 
narrow  limits  of  self -consciousness  imposed  on 
thought  by  the  eighteenth  century,  and  placed  us 
in  the  wide,  sweet  presence  of  nature.  They  had 
led  us  to  a  superb  abstract  faith  in  man  and  free- 
dom: they  had  taught  us  to  adore  the  Unknown 
God. 

Yet  the  contemplative  ideal  is  useless  if  it  lead 
not  beyond  itself.  It  must  find  in  the  service  of 
action  its  true  kingdom.  Our  poets  were  to  pass 
from  the  receptive  attitude  towards  the  aggressive, 
from  passion  for  abstract  ideals  to  passion  for  con- 
crete fact,  from  showing  the  power  and  signifi- 
cance of  the  impersonal  life,  to  revealing  the  might 
of  personality.  The  soul  no  longer  lies  passive 
and  expectant  till  it  be  flooded  by  the  truth:  it 
grapples  with  its  foes  and  presses  upward,  breath- 
less, towards  a  remote  ideal.  The  clash  of  spirit- 
ual forces  sounds  through  the  verse  of  Clough  and 
Arnold,  and  the  very  lament  of  these  spirits,  fixed 
forever  in  unstable  equilibrium,  witnesses  to  their 
sense  of  the  supreme  value  of  the  Act :  — 

"Go  from  the  East  to  the  West,  as  the  sun  and  the  stars  direct 

thee, 

Go  with  the  girdle  of  man,  go  and  encompass  the  earth  ; 
Not  for  the  gain  of  the  Gold,  the  getting,  the  hoarding,  the 

having, 
But  for  the  joy  of  the  Deed,  but  for  the  Duty  to  do." l 

Such  is  the  challenge  of  Clough' s  hardy  song.  In 
Tennyson,  naturally  contemplative  of  tempera- 
ment as  Wordsworth  himself,  spiritual  struggle 

1  Hope  Evermore  and  Believe. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    319 

finds  climax  in  an  act  of  choice,  and  purity  of 
deed,  not  truth  of  thought,  is  the  key  to  life  and 
wisdom.  It  is  Browning  himself  who  proclaims 
to  us  that  he  "was  ever  a  Fighter:"  without  his 
testimony,  we  could  not  hesitate  to  recognize  in 
the  poet  of  Luria  and  Caponsacchi  the  protagonist 
of  the  battles  of  the  soul.  The  earlier  poetry  of 
the  century  is  contemplative  even  when  most  rest- 
less: the  poetry  of  the  Victorian  age  is  militant 
even  when  most  serene. 

In  pantheism  there  is  neither  growth  nor  change. 
All  movement  is  the  glimmer  of  breaking  bubbles 
on  the  eternal  ocean  of  Being.     The  na-  The  Analy. 
tions  of  the  East,  wrapped  in  eternal  rest,   £ 
are  to  the  world  a  perpetual  image  of  Contempla- 
tion uninvaded  by  the  consciousness  of  the  Deed. 

But  the  Victorian  age  is  dominated  by  the 
thought  of  Evolution:  and  this  is  a  thought  of 
supreme  activity,  and  of1  unceasing  strife.  It  is 
this  thought,  initiated  by  science,  but  swiftly  pass- 
ing out  of  the  purely  scientific  domain,  which  has 
guided  the  age  to  new  emphasis  on  personality. 
Poetry  subsequent  to  1830  practically  ignored  the 
most  significant  factor  in  the  work  of  the  earlier 
poets.  Nature,  which  had  been  a  theme  of  sub- 
stantial and  glorious  independence,  sank  back 
again  into  a  storehouse  of  illustration  for  the  ex- 
perience of  man.  The  sense  for  the  individual 
which  has  shaped  democracy  and  created  fiction 
may  be  clearly  traced  in  its  slow  movement  to- 
wards consciousness  in  the  sequence  of  English 


320         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


song.  It  is  utterly  absent  from  the  pure  subjec- 
tivity of  Byron,  or  the  world  of  revolutionary 
thinkers  like  Shelley,  peopled  with  abstractions 
and  ideals.  Slowly  its  value  is  hinted,  as  Words- 
worth contemplates,  though  through  reaches  of 
clear  air  which  blend,  while  they  reveal,  essential 
and  typical  man.  But  contemporary  life  is  upon 
us,  and  "the  need  of  a  world  of  men."  Through 
the  sense  of  struggle,  through  the  interest  in  per- 
sonality, our  Victorian  poetry  becomes  dramatic. 
It  has  shown  vitality  in  the  production  of  technical 
drama,  through  the  work  of  Tennyson,  Swinburne, 
and  Browning:  it  has  shown  the  strength  of  the 
dramatic  impulse  yet  more  vividly,  in  the  creation 
of  new  artistic  forms,  and  the  suffusion  of  the  old 
forms  with  a  dramatic  spirit.  Its  central  type,  the 
dramatic  monologue,  is  a  fusion  of  the  dramatic 
with  the  reflective  method.  "The  incidents  of  the 
development  of  a  soul"  become  the  only  thing 
worth  study ;  and  through  conflict  alone  character 
can  emerge.  Even  the  subjectivity  of  Clough 
and  Arnold  bears  its  own  strange  witness  to  the 
sacredness  of  personality.  It  is  not  egotistic  like 
the  subjectivity  of  Shelley;  for  through  all  subtle- 
ties of  their  verse  runs  the  under-consciousness 
that  they  explore  the  adventures  of  the  hidden  life 
not  only  for  themselves  but  for  their  brothers. 
Still,  it  is  in  the  large  work  of  Browning,  objec- 
tive and  varied,  that  character  makes  itself  felt  in 
its  full  value,  and  the  complete  sense  for  person- 
ality is  achieved.  For  Browning  has  one  domi- 
nant impulse ;  his  unvarying  method  — 


^~*~\ 

THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    321 

* '  Takes  the  least  man  of  all  mankind,  as  I, 
Looks  at  his  head  and  heart,  finds  how  and  why 
He  differs  from  his  fellows  utterly."  1 

It  is  Browning  who  leads  us  into  the  world  of 
men :  but  it  is  Tennyson  who  more  fully  even  than 
the  poet  of  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  looks  for- 
ward to  the  climax  of  evolution,  the  production  of 
the  crowning  race,  — 

' '  Of  those  that  eye  to  eye  shall  look 

On  knowledge  :  under  whose  command 
Is  earth  and  earth's :  and  in  their  hand 
Is  Nature  like  an  open  book."  2 

As  Nature  was  the  centre  to  the  Georgian  poets, 
around  Humanity  gathers  all  the  poetry  of  the  age 
of  Victoria.  The  motif  of  personality,  absent 
from  the  first  great  school  of  modern  poets,  has 
absorbed  all  others  into  itself. 

Out  of  the  sense  for  contemplation  and  abstrac- 
tions, out  of  the  shaping  emotion  of  an 

.  .    .  ,.     .  ,.    The  Con- 

hlStoriC  crisis,  developed  the  religion  ot   quest  of  im- 

mortality. 

Wordsworth  and  Shelley. 

Out  of  the  sense  for  action  and  for  personality, 
out  of  the  shaping  thought  of  evolution,  develops 
the  religion  of  the  Victorian  poets. 

The  faith  attained  by  our  later  poetry  verifies 
the  intuitions  and  fulfills  the  deficiencies  of  the 
faith  of  the  earlier ;  and  the  vision  won  by  Tenny- 
son and  Browning  is  perfectly  the  complement  of    ^ 
that  granted  to  the  poetry  of  the  revolution. 

1  Epilogue  to  Dramatis  Persona. 

2  In  Memoriam,  Epilogue. 


322         THE    TRIUMPH  OF   THE  SPIRIT 

Our  Victorian  poets  have  taken  the  supreme 
leap  possible  to  the  intellect  of  man.  From  the 
mortal  they  have  inferred  the  immortal.  In  the 
face  of  the  obvious  facts  of  nature,  of  the  tremen- 
dous reality  of  decay  and  death,  they  have  pro- 
claimed the  wider  fact,  the  higher  reality  of  life 
eternal.  They  have  seen  man,  buffeted  to  exhaus- 
tion in  the  heat  of  battle,  — 

u  By  the  pain-throb  triumphantly  winning  intensified  bliss, 
And  the  next  world's  reward  and  repose  by  the  struggle  of 
this."1 

The  Conquest  of  Immortality!  By  the  poets 
of  the  revolution  it  is  neither  sought  nor  dreamed. 
Ever  content  with  an  impersonal  ideal,  they  abide 
serene,  at  their  best,  in  the  eternal;  the  immortal 
there  is  no  sign  that  they  ever  vitally  conceived. 
Had  personal  immortality  never  occurred  to  the 
race,  the  great  body  of  their  inspired  work  might 
remain  practically  unchanged.  The  life  to  come 
is  assumed  at  times  in  Wordsworth;  it  is  never  a 
controlling  theme.  Even  his  great  Ode  dwells 
simply  on  a  Divine  Source  to  our  being,  on  our 
essential  kinship  with  the  spiritual  world.  A  pas- 
sage in  the  "Prelude"  goes  farther:  — 

"  Whether  we  be  young  or  old, 
Our  destiny,  our  Being's  end  and  aim, 
Is  with  infinity  and  only  there  — 
With  hope  it  is,  hope  that  can  never  die, 
Effort  and  aspiration  and  desire, 
And  something  evermore  about  to  be."2 

This   points   towards    immortality,   but   does   not 
arrive;  and  it  marks  the  highest  reach  of  Words- 

1  Browning,  Saul.  2  The  Prelude,  Book  VI. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    323 

worth.     If  faith  in  personal  immortality  is  outside 
his  range,   it   is  yet  more  strikingly  ignored  by 
Shelley.     The  poet  of  "  Adonais  "  faces  the  final- 
Mystery,  and  wins  faith  to  him  adequate  and  glo-    , 
rious  in  the  vision  of  the  soul  of  his  friend  become  / 
a  portion  of  universal  loveliness,  and  bearing  his  /     6^ 
part  in  the  plastic  stress  of  the  One  Spirit.     No  7 
expression  of  revolutionary  poetry  touches  a  higher    ; 
level  of  spiritual  passion  than  "Adonais: "  none  is  '' 
more  avowedly,  joyously,  and  serenely  pantheistic. 

Not  for  one  instant  would  this  impersonal  vis- 
ion, with  all  its  entrancing  beauty,  satisfy  the  soul 
of  a  Victorian  poet.  He  might  be  unable  to  ad- 
vance beyond  it :  he  could  never  exult  in  it.  Far 
more  striking  even  than  the  conquest  of  immortal- 
ity is  the  cry  of  longing  for  it,  a  cry  which  sounds 
through  all  our  modern  verse.  Every  one  of  the 
Victorian  poets  demands  it  with  a  strong  and  clam- 
orous desire ;  those  who  miss  it  are  doomed  to  per- 
petual unrest.  The  earliest  great  poem  of  Ros- 
setti  derives  all  its  magic  charm  from  the  aesthetic 
assumption  of  Heaven ;  the  denial  of  a  celestial 
future  darkens  every  page  of  Swinburne  and  Mor- 
ris. The  poets  of  doubt  cry  out  on  immortality, 
and,  finding  it  not,  take  refuge  in  forced  cheer 
or  in  blinded  hope.  Whether  faith  be  attained  or 
forfeited,  the  problem  of  the  life  to  come  is  of 
supreme  and  haunting  importance  to  every  poet 
of  the  Victorian  age. 

The  conquest  of  immortality  has  been  no  easy 
task.  The  Apostolic  Succession  of  the  Spirit  was 
without,  not  within,  the  Church,  and  the  poets 


324         THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

could  rest  in  no  serene  tradition.  Yet  the  vic- 
tory lias  been  won.  Not  by  our  minor  singers. 
The  pall  of  death  rests  on  the  beauty  of  the  poets 
of  art,  and  Clough  and  Arnold,  seeking,  may  not 
find.  But  our  greatest  fight  to  win,  and  their 
faith  shines  invincible  and  clear.  "In  Memo- 
riam,"  published  in  1850,  is  the  epic  of  immor- 
tality, the  colloquy  of  Love  between  earth  and 
heaven.  Browning's  faith  is  more  resonant,  if  not 
more  absolute. 

"  Good,  to  forgive  ; 

Best,  to  forget ; 

Living,  we  fret, 
Dying,  we  live. 
Fretless  and  free, 

Soul,  clap  thy  pinion ! 

Earth  have  dominion, 
Body,  o'er  thee."  1 

The  faith  which  is  won  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  nebulous  rapture  of  the  earlier  imper- 
sonal ideal.  It  is  sharp,  definite,  and  personal. 

Tennyson  passes  far  beyond  satisfaction  with 
pantheism  in  an  early  cycle :  — 

"  Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
\        The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside, 
*    And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet."  2 

And  if  at  the  end  of  "In  Memoriam"  he  returns 
to  the  high  and  rapturous  sense  that  his  friend  is 
"mixed  with  God  and  Nature,"  he  turns  in  the 
next  moment  to  that  safeguard  of  personality  and 
that  ethical  appeal  unknown  to  pantheism  as  he 
cries :  — 

1  La  Saisiaz. 

2  In  Memoriam,  Canto  XL VII. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    325 

"O  living  Will  that  shalt  endure 

When  all  that  seems  shall  suffer  shock, 
Rise  in  the  spiritual  rock, 
Flow  through  our  deeds,  and  make  them  pure."  l 

No  return  to  the  endless  and  wearying  cycle  of 
change  contents  the  modern  desire.  The  conscious 
life,  strong  in  its  integrity,  must  go  forth  into  the 
Unseen,  bearing  with  it  all  love  and  wisdom  gained 
on  earth,  trusting  that  in  the  world  of  absolute 
knowledge  all  desire  shall  be  fulfilled,  all  doubt 
justified,  and  all  truth  revealed. 

It  is  the  work  of  Browning,  most  militant  of 
poets,  that  is  most  strongly  pervaded  and  con- 
trolled by  this  great  Faith.  No  fibre  of  his  or- 
ganic and  vital  poetry  could  endure,  were  the 
nerve  force  of  faith  in  Immortality  extracted.  It 
is  this  faith  which  changes  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book  "  from  the  record  of  a  petty  and  suffocating 
tragedy  to  the  triumphant  epic  of  the  Spirit :  — 

"  0  lover  of  my  life,  O  Soldier-Saint, 
No  work  begun  may  ever  pause  with  death," 

murmurs  white  Pompilia;  and  in  her  words  we 
find  strength  to  endure,  not  only  the  great  agony 
fallen  upon  her  innocent  life,  but  also  the  greater 
agony  of  Guido,  the  reprobate,  who  in  another 
world  of  less  thwarted  impulses  may  yet  "touch 
God's  shadow  and  be  healed."  "Rabbi  Ben 
Ezra,"  the  pa3an  of  old  age,  the  superb  vindica- 
tion of  the  worth  of  life  looking  onward  through 
the  tomb,  is  the  counterpart  of  Wordsworth's 
Ode,  the  paean  of  infancy,  looking  backward  past 

1  Canto  CXXXI. 


326         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

the  birth;  but  immortality,  vague  impulse  to  the 
poem  of  childhood,  has  become  strong,  grave,  and 
lear  conviction  to  the  poem  of  age. 

In  this  faith  in  immortality  is  found  the  climax 
and  triumph  of  the  long  quest  of  the  spirit,  which 
we  have  traced  through  the  sequence  of  our  poets. 
!  The  futility  of  aspiration  and  the  folly  of  desire 
have  eaten  like  a  canker  into  their  heart.  In 
immortal  life  is  the  answer  to  the  Fury-taunt 
flung  at  Shelley's  champion  of  humanity:  — 

"  Dost  thou  boast  the  clear  waters  thou  waken'dst  for  man  ? 
Then  was  kindled  within  him  a  thirst  which  outran 
These  perishing  waters :  a  thirst  of  fierce  fever, 
Hope,  love,  doubt,  desire,  which  consume  him  forever."  1 

In  immortal  life  is  the  answer  to  the  later  cry 
of  Swinburne :  — 

44  Thou  hast  given  sleep,  and  stricken  sleep  with  dreams, 

Saying  joy  is  not,  but  love  of  joy  shall  be. 
Thou  hast  made  sweet  springs  to  all  our  pleasant  streams ; 
In  the  end,  Thou  hast  made  them  bitter  with  the  sea."  2 

In  immortal  life  is  found  the  answer  to  the  wail 
of  Arnold :  — 

44  We  but  dream  we  have  our  wished-for  powers  ; 

Ends  we  seek,  we  never  shall  attain. 
Ah !  some  power  exists  there  which  is  ours  ? 
Some  end  is  there,  we  indeed  may  gain  ?  "  3 

In  immortal  life  the  answer  to  the  kindred  wail 
of  Clough :  — 

* 4  Or  is  it  right,  and  will  it  do 

To  pace  the  sad  confusion  through, 

1  Prometheus  Unbound,  Act  I. 

2  Atalanta  in  Calydon. 
-    8  Self-Deception. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    327 

And  say,  It  doth  not  yet  appear 
What  we  shall  be,  what  we  are  here."  * 

For  in  immortal  life  alone  is  found  hope  of  the 
synthesis  sought  in  vain  by  the  first  renaissance 
and  by  the  later  renaissance  of  our  own  day :  the 
reconciliation  of  peace  with  desire,  of  a  perfect 
development  with  a  spiritual  'ideal.  We  must 
open  life  upward  into  eternity  would  we  accept  all 
good,  and  sacrifice  no  aspiration.  The  perpetual 
paradox  can  find  only  one  solution :  the  confidence 
that  harmony  is  imperfect  to  finite  vision  only 
because  planned  on  an  infinite  sealer 

Thus  the  longing  for  immortality,  unconscious 
at  first,  has  become,  as  the  century  advanced,  im- 
perative and  insistent.  It  has  followed,  in  vital 
connection,  the  growing  sense  of  the  worth  of 
personality.  The  spiritual  sequence  of  our  mod- 
ern imagination  shows  long  groping  after  the  Life 
Eternal.  For  a  time  the  search  seems  to  end  in 
a  blank  darkness ;  but  at  last  the  quest  is  re- 
warded, and  the  greatest  and  most  earnest  of  our 
"pilgrims  of  eternity"  force  their  way  into  celes- 
tial day. 

Our  poetry  has  moved  from  contemplation  to 
action,  from  nature  to  man,  from  satis-  The  cry  for 
faction  with  this  world  to  demand  for  tion. 
the  world  to  come.     Long  and  arduous  has  been 
the  journey;  there  can  be  no  question  of  the  end. 

"The  whole  creation   groaneth   and   travaileth 
together,  waiting  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons 

1  Through  a  Glass 

r**       or 

UNIVERSITY 


328         THE  TRIUMPH   OF   THE  SPIRIT 

of  God,"  it  was  once  written.  The  words  would 
be  meaningless  to  the  poetry  of  the  revolution: 
they  might  serve  as  summary  to  the  product  of 
Tennyson  and  Browning. 

The  imagination  of  the  early  century  ignored 
personality  in  man  and  God  alike.  It  rested  sat- 
isfied in  an  ideal  passion  for  the  race,  in  an  intui- 
tion of  a  Spirit  unknown,  mysteriously  felt  through 
the  shrouding  glory  of  nature. 

Time  went  on.  The  poets  discovered  the  sacred- 
ness  of  personality  in  man ;  the  poetry  of  charac- 
ter appeared,  the  idea  of  the  personal  life  received 
an  ever-increasing  emphasis,  till  the  conviction  of 
its  worth  led  to  faith  in  its  endurance  even  through 
the  shock  of  death. 

The  pantheistic  ideal  of  an  all-informing  life 
was  sufficient  to  the  first  fresh  religious  ardor  of 
a  new  childhood.  It  quickened  and  stilled  at  once 
the  souls  of  the  poets,  and  in  mystic  rapture  of 
communion  with  the  Universal  Spirit  was  found 
full  scope  for  their  contemplative  passion.  But 
their  contentment  did  not  last,  nor  could  their 
message  long  satisfy.  Soon  it  gave  place  to  a 
sense  of  vacancy  and  of  desire. 

For  mystery,  first  essential  of  religion  though 
it  be,  can  never  bring  redemption.  The  later 
poets  passed  from  the  heights  of  peace  into  the 
clash  and  shock  of  thought  which  belongs  to  the 
modern  world.  As  they  came  from  solitude  to 
men,  a  new  sense,  hardly  traceable  in  the  poets  of 
the  revolution,  haunted  them  more  and  more.  It 
was  the  sense  of  moral  evil;  to  speak  boldly,  the 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS 


329 


sense  of  sin.  Sin  is  denied  by  Shelley,  ignored 
by  Keats,  recognized  but  defended  by  Byron. 
Wordsworth  initiates  us  into  suffering,  but  leaves 
unsounded  the  depths  of  sin ;  we  know  the  pain  of 
Margaret,  but  we  believe  Peter  Bell  to  be  a  bold, 
bad  man  simply  because  we  respect  the  authority 
of  his  creator.  ^Coleridge  alone,  of  all  the  poets 
of  the  period,  —  and  he  is  the  only  one  among 
them  vitally  Christian,  —  gives  us  a  wonderful 
study,  psychological  and  symbolic,  of  crime,  re- 
morse, and  expiation. 

But  visions  of  sin  haunt  the  Victorian  poets. 
The  consciousness  of  moral  evil  is  never  absent 
from  Clough  and  Tennyson;  and  sin  is  so  intense 
a  fact  to  Browning  that  it  turns  him  dramatist, 
and  furnishes  all  his  best  motifs.  His  poetry  is 
simply  an  arena,  where  men  fight  wickedness 
within  and  without;  nor  were  all  their  warfare 
sufficient,  unless  reinforced  by  divine  redemption. 

Thus  seeking  incentive  to  action  and  salvation 
into  purity,  Victorian  poets  demand  of  necessity 
a  new  conception  of  the  Divine.  A  new  need, 
ignored  by  our  earlier  poets,  becomes  consciously 
and  bitterly  felt. 

At  first  as  need  only.  We  have  seen  how  the 
imagination,  moving  from  pantheist  eternity  to 
personal  immortality,  passed  through  a  phase  of 
loss  and  pain  before  arriving  at  the  goal  of  its 
desires.  The  sequence  could  not  be  otherwise  in 
this  far  greater  quest.  Here  too,  authority  was 
for  the  poets  of  slight  avail.  Here  too,  the  reli- 
gion of  nature  ceased  to  satisfy.  As  it  lost  its 


330         THE   TRIUMPH   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

hold,  the  religion  of  the  Gospels  silently  uttered  a 
gracious  appeal  to  the  hearts  of  men.  The  poets, 
even  when  nurtured  in  the  superior  instincts  of 
modern  criticism,  heard  the  appeal.  A  conscious 
desire  for  a  God  who  might  be  known,  for  a  salva- 
tion that  might  heal,  began  to  sound  through  all 
the  Victorian  poetry.  Shelley  bemoans  no  van- 
ished Christ ;  but  Clough  and  Arnold,  losing  Him, 
are  lost  indeed.  A  wail  of  infinite  sorrow,  vainly 
suppressed,  sounds  through  their  verse :  — 

"  Christ  is  not  risen,  no,  — 
He  lies  and  moulders  low  ; 

Christ  is  not  risen ! 

What  though  the  stone  were  rolled  away,  and  though 
The  grave  found  empty  there  ? 

"  Is  He  not  risen,  and  shall  we  not  rise  ? 

Oh,  we  unwise  ! 

What  did  we  dream,  what  wake  we  to  discover  ? 
Ye  hills,  fall  on  us,  and  ye  mountains  cover ! 

In  darkness  and  great  gloom 
Come  ere  we  thought  it  is  our  day  of  doom ; 
From  the  cursed  world,  which  is  one  tomb, 
Christ  is  not  risen  ! 

"  Eat,  drink,  and  play,  and  think  that  this  is  bliss : 
There  is  no  heaven  but  this ; 

There  is  no  hell 
Save  earth,  which  serves  its  purpose  doubly  well, 

Seeing  it  visits  still 
With  equalest  apportionment  of  ill 
Both  good  and  bad  alike,  and  brings  to  one  same  dust 
The  unjust  and  the  just 
With  Christ,  who  is  not  risen. 
Eat,  drink,  and  die,  for  we  are  souls  bereaved : 
Of  all  the  creatures  under  heaven's  wide  cope 
We  are  most  hopeless,  who  had  once  most  hope, 
And  most  belief -less,  who  had  once  believed  — 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    331 

Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust, 
As  of  the  unjust,  also  of  the  just,  — 
Yea,  of  that  Just  One  too ! 
It  is  the  one  sad  gospel  that  is  true  — 
Christ  is  not  risen ! 

"And,  oh,  good  men  of  ages  yet  to  be 
Who  shall  believe  because  ye  did  not  see, 

Oh,  be  ye  warned,  be  wise, 

No  more  with  pleading  eyes 

And  sobs  of  strong  desire 

Unto  the  empty  vacant  void  aspire, 
Seeking  another  and  impossible  birth 
That  is  not  of  your  own,  and  only  mother  earth, 
But  if  there  is  no  other  life  for  you 
Sit  down  and  be  content,  since  this  must  even  do, 
He  is  not  risen." 1 

With  equal  distinctness,  though  bowed  down 
perhaps  by  less  solemn  weight  of  anguish,  Arnold 
voices  the  same  cry :  — 

"  Oh,  had  I  lived  in  that  great  day, 
How  had  its  glory  new 
Fill'd  earth  and  heaven,  and  caught  away 
My  ravish'd  spirit  too  ! 

"  No  thoughts  that  to  the  world  belong 
Had  stood  against  the  wave 
Of  love  which  set  so  deep  and  strong 
From  Christ's  then  open  grave. 

"  No  lonely  life  had  pass'd  too  slow 
When  I  could  hourly  scan 
Upon  his  Cross,  with  head  sunk  low, 
That  nail'd,  thorn-crowned  Man  ! 

u  And  centuries  came  and  ran  their  course, 
And  unspent  all  that  time 

1  Clough,  Easter  Day. 


332         THE   TRIUMPH  OF   THE   SPIRIT 

Still,  still  went  forth  that  Child's  dear  force 
And  still  was  at  its  prime. 

"  Ay,  ages  long  endured  His  span 
Of  life  —  't  is  true  received,  — 
That  gracious  Child,  that  thorn-crowned  Man, 
He  lived  while  we  believed. 

"While  we  believed,  on  earth  He  went 
And  open  stood  His  grave. 
Men  called  from  chamber,  church,  and  tent, 
And  Christ  was  by  to  save. 

"  Now  He  is  dead !     Far  hence  He  lies 
In  the  lorn  Syrian  town, 
And  on  His  grave  with  shining  eyes 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down."  l 

The  desire  for  an  ideal  in  which  could  be  found 
incentive  to  action,  the  growing  sense  of  the  su- 
preme sacredness  of  the  human  and  the  personal, 
blended  with  the  passionate  longing  for  redemp- 
tion from  moral  evil  to  turn  men  aside  from  the 
intense  but  unmoral  faith  adequate  to  Shelley. 
They  demanded  a  religion  striking  its  roots  deeper 
into  the  mystery  of  the  being  of  man.  Such  a  re- 
ligion was  ready  to  their  hand :  but  alas !  antiquity 
and  convention  had  enswathed  its  life  in  forms, 
and  the  poets  when  first  drawn  to  it,  bewailed  it  as 
dead. 

Despairing  sense  of  loss  and  failure  marks  this 
Christ  the  stage  in  the  spiritual  evolution  of  our 
Reveaier.  poetry.  They  do  not  mark  its  close. 
The  poets  of  the  pagan  reaction  turn  aside  with 

1  Arnold,  Obermann. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    333 

conscious  repudiation  from  Christianity,  and  the 
end  of  their  message  is  death.  Tennyson  and 
Browning  resume  the  quest,  and  do  not  pause  till 
they  find  Him  whom  they  seek. 

It  is  through  air  dim  with  shadows  that  Tenny- 
son, like  his  own  Sir  Percival,  rides  after  the 
Holy  Grail.  Agnostic  in  temperament,  of  hesi- 
tating and  critical  spirit,  he  sojourns  with  his 
younger  brothers  for  a  long  time  in  the  land  of 
doubt.  Only  under  the  stress  of  personal  loss, 
and  after  long  gropings  and  tarry  ings,  does  he 
attain  to  faith.  And  when  he  wins,  it  is  by  no 
triumphant  conclusion  of  the  force  of  the  whole 
nature,  mind,  heart,  and  soul,  but  rather  by  a  des- 
perate, superb  venture  of  Faith.  Yet  that  the 
poet  had  a  right  to  the  venture,  who  can  doubt  ? 

In  an  earlier  essay  we  touched  on  the  intellectual 
aspect  of  "In  Memoriam."  We  did  not  hint  at 
those  wide  spaces  where  tentative  assumption  is 
justified  by  experience,  and  the  verification  of 
desire  is  found  in  that  consciousness  which  must 
ever  transcend  reason.  Taking  the  poem  as  a 
whole,  passing  beyond  it  into  the  entire  achieve- 
ment of  Tennyson,  we  feel  in  him  at  once  the  man 
whose  powers  are  set  free.  The  modern  disease 
of  inaction  never  touches  his  fine  spirit;  a  full  if 
not  a  joyous  life  is  expressed  through  all  his  work. 

"  Help  Thy  vain  worlds  to  bear  Thy  Light," 

is  his  final  prayer ;  and  we  feel  that  the  struggle  has 
not  been  wasted  which  has  led  his  spirit  to  recog- 
nize that  the  central  mystery  is  shrouded  not  in 
darkness,  but  in  the  Light  of  God.  His  great 


334        THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

poem  takes  us  into  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow ;  but 
it  is  a  valley  full  of  tender  and  subtle  gleams, 
such  as  no  garish  sunshine  could  reveal.  It  is 
the  depth  of  his  instinctive  trust  in  the  Divine 
Fatherhood  that  ever  and  ever  reclaims  him  from 
despair.  He  sings  the  redemption  and  exaltation 
of  the  soul.  His  belief  in  immortality,  clear,  per- 
sonal, and  definite,  has  deeper  source  than  mere 
desire :  — 

"  Strong  Son  of  God,  Immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  who  have  not  seen  Thy  Face, 
By  faith  and  faith  alone  embrace, 
Believing  where  we  cannot  prove  "  — 

here  is  its  foundation.  Only  in  faith  in  the  Im- 
mortal Love  who  is  the  Son  of  God,  both  human 
and  divine,  can  earthly  love  be  proved  immortal. 
The  Eternal  must  become  human  if  man  is  to  have 
assurance  of  his  own  eternity.  "Because  I  live, 
ye  shall  live  also,"  said  Christ;  the  argument  of 
Tennyson  is  after  all  not  so  very  different  from 
that  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  "Blessed  are  they 
who  have  not  seen  and  yet  have  believed,"  it  is 
written  again.  Perhaps  this  last  and  greatest  of 
the  Beatitudes  was  the  share  of  the  dead  Laureate. 
But  it  is  in  Browning  that  Christianity  finds  its 
most  joyous  and  undaunted  exponent.  From 
"Paracelsus  "  to  "Ferishtah's  Fancies  "  and  "  Aso- 
lando,"  a  definite  and  devout  Christianity  shines 
through  his  work.  No  important  poem  is  un- 
touched by  it,  except  when  deliberately  and  for 
specific  purposes  excluded;  and  in  the  greatest 
poems,  it  is  assumed  supreme. 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS 

Nor  is  Browning's  faith  due  to  blindness. 
Through  our  Victorian  poets  we  can  trace  the  atti- 
tude towards  doubt  changing  from  fear  and  pain 
to  a  welcome  almost  exultant :  — 

"  You  call  for  faith, 

I  show  you  doubt,  to  prove  that  faith  exists, 
The  more  of  doubt  the  better  faith,  I  say, 
If  faith  o'ercomes  doubt."  l 

So  cries  Browning  at  last.  To  Tennyson,  doubt 
is  still  the  foe  over  whom  faith  wins  uncertain 
victory.  To  Browning  it  is  the  Angel  of  the 
Most  High,  rendering  possible  moral  character  and 
spiritual  progress.  In  his  superb  and  unfaltering 
courage,  he  achieves  a  final  ethical  triumph  over 
the  enemies  of  growth,  and  secures  full  freedom. 
He  attacks  audaciously  the  darkest  spiritual  prob- 
lems. Many  vanish  before  his  cheery  voice;  others 
are  conquered,  or  sink  into  ignominious  retreat. 
If  now  and  again  a  world-old  puzzle  refuses  to 
yield,  the  poet  hastens  serenely  round  it,  and  finds 
faith  waiting  on  the  other  side. 

Wordsworth,  early  in  the  century,  gave  us 
through  the  record  of  his  own  experience  a  pro- 
phecy of  the  spiritual  progress  to  follow.  Brown- 
ing, through  his  more  dramatic  method,  gives  a 
summary  of  the  spiritual  progress  that  is  past.  All 
the  forces  which  have  played  through  our  poetry 
are  latent  in  his  work.  Pantheism  is  not  un- 
known to  him;  it  is  indeed  included  by  implica- 
tion in  his  creed,  and  his  early  poems,  written 
under  Shelley's  influence,  are  deeply  colored  by 

1  Bishop  Blougr  ant's  Apology. 


336         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

it.  But  the  spirit  whose  dominant  note  is  struggle 
could  pause  in  pantheism  only  for  a  brief  time. 
His  profound  feeling  for  human  life  leads  him 
swiftly  further.  In  his  thought,  the  being  of  the 
soul  as  well  as  the  being  of  the  flower  must  find 
in  God  its  perfect  archetype.  No  human  power, 
no  human  need,  is  wanting  in  His  Infinite  Being. 
Greater  than  personality  because  including  as  well 
as  transcending  personality;  accessible,  nay,  re- 
sponsive to  worship,  with  divine  tenderness  press- 
ing upon  man  a  Revelation  in  terms  which  he  can 
understand,  —  such  is  Browning's  God. 

One  great  sequence  may  be  gathered  from  his 
works  which  faces  full  on  Christianity  and  meets 
directly  the  most  specific  difficulties  of  the  wide 
Christian  ideal.  Studying  these  superb  and  varied 
poems,  with  their  range  of  insight  and  passion,  we 
realize  that  we  have  reached  the  climax  of  the  re- 
flective poetry  of  our  age ;  we  have  come  also  to 
the  highest  spiritual  region  attained  by  the  modern 
poets.  The  series  must  include  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra" 
and  "Abt  Vogler,"  "Cleon"  and  "  Karshish," 
"Caliban"  and  "A  Death  in  the  Desert,"  "Christ- 
mas Eve  "  and  "Easter  Day,"  and,  finally  and  su- 
premely, "Saul."  Much  more  might  be  added, 
both  fragments  and  wholes;  but  this  one  group, 
made  up  of  poems  comparatively  short,  will  suffice 
to  show  the  whole  sweep  of  Browning's  faith. 

"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra"  and  "Abt  Vogler"  give  us 
fundamental  Theism,  and  proclaim  Immortality  as 
the  one  key  to  the  fragmentary  beginnings  of 
earth.  "Cleon"  and  "Karshish,"  companion- 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    337 

poems,  treat  of  the  creeds  of  the  Orient  and  of 
Greece  —  that  is,  of  the  highest  paganism  —  in  their 
relation  to  Christianity.  With  keenest  dramatic 
and  philosophical  insight  they  show  us  the  Incar- 
nation, and  the  clear  revelation  of  immortality  in 
Christ,  as  the  necessary  fulfillment  and  complement 
of  all  that  was  best  in  the  noble,  hesitating,  natu- 
ral Theism  of  the  ancient  world.  "Caliban"  and 
"A  Death  in  the  Desert"  are  again  companion- 
studies.  As  the  former  poems  suggested  the  his- 
toric development  of  the  Christian  faith,  these 
deal  with  the  philosophical  difficulties  which  it 
encounters.  "Caliban"  is  a  study  in  savage  re- 
ligion—  anthropomorphism  in  crudest  form,  unlit 
by  love,  and  unillumined  by  revelation.  Through 
the  exalted  and  tender  monologue  of  the  dying  St. 
John,  Browning  has  audaciously  answered  Strauss. 
In  its  assertion  of  the  necessity  of  historic  revela- 
tion as  antecedent  to  a  spiritual  and  transcendental 
conception,  in  its  vindication  of  anthropomorphism, 
guided  by  love  and  sanctioned  by  fact,  as  the  in- 
evitable mode  of  faith  for  those  still  in  the  flesh, 
the  poem  explores  with  reverent  power  the  most 
obscure  and  profound  regions  of  intellectual  Chris- 
tianity. In  "Christmas  Eve"  and  "Easter  Day," 
on  the  other  hand,  — poems  published  in  1850,  the 
same  year  with  "In  Memoriam," — Browning  faces 
the  practical  difficulties  of  the  Christian  life.  The 
first  poem  is  a  discussion  of  tolerance,  an  effort  to 
reconcile  passionate  belief  in  "the  one  chief  best 
way  of  worship,"  found  in  Christ,  with  rever- 
ent recognition  of  the  wideness  of  God's  truth. 


338        THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

"Easter  Day"  attacks  the  yet  more  searching 
problem  of  the  relation  of  the  Christian  to  the 
world,  and  with  terrible  candor  discusses  and  im- 
ages Christ's  Law  of  Renunciation. 

Through  all  these  poems,  whether  dealing  with 
theory  or  practice,  breathes  a  passionate,  tender, 
and  personal  adoration  towards  the  One  Re- 
deemer, not  surpassed  by  the  ardor  of  the  first 
Christians,  as  hinted  in  the  rude  images  on  the 
dark  walls  of  the  Catacombs.  But  it  is  in  "Saul" 
that  the  spiritual  passion  of  Browning  and  of  the 
century  reaches  its  climax.  The  marvelous  poem 
is  a  summary  of  faith.  It  reveals  a  vision  that 
still  to-day  transcends  all  powers  of  human  inven- 
tion, as  it  transcended  the  powers  of  the  little 
shepherd-David,  who  narrates  how  it  was  revealed. 
The  theme  is  the  ministry  of  wholesome  faith  to 
a  soul  that  has  sunk,  as  the  soul  of  our  age  has 
seemed  at  times  to  sink,  into  spiritual  despair. 
First,  the  sweet  ministries  of  nature  are  invoked 
to  Saul's  aid  by  the  music  of  David,  as  they  have 
been  invoked  for  us  so  often  in  these  later  days, 
by  a  more  recent  harmony.  Then  the  dark  King 
is  summoned  to  the  contemplation  of  the  gentle 
sequence  of  the  natural  life  of  man,  of  the  har- 
vest, the  burial,  the  bridal,  —  such  scenes  as  those 
wherein  the  troubled  soul  of  Wordsworth  once 
found  peace.  The  appeal  becomes  ringing,  per- 
sonal, summoning  the  memory  of  the  life  of  ac- 
tion, power,  kingship,  and  the  hope  of  enduring 
fame :  and  still  Saul,  though  stirred,  is  not  healed. 
Then  to  David,  passing  beyond  the  range  of  mere 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  POETS    339 

human  knowledge,  come  intuitions  of  the  Divine; 
and  he  speaks,  as  Shelley  spoke  to  us,  of  an  Im- 
manent Deity,  shining  through  all  the  forms  of 
nature,  revealed  as  Infinite  Love  and  Infinite  Law. 
But  the  paean  of  life's  widest  glory  fails  to  set 
free  the  soul  bound  by  despair  of  its  worth.  Yet 
further  David  must  pass :  in  exultant  and  ringing 
speech,  which  now  sweeps  forward  unfaltering  to 
the  end,  he  proclaims  the  truth  of  immortality, 
the  eternal  radiance  awaiting  us  through  love's 
largess,  beyond  the  tempered  light  of  earth.  And 
still  his  mission  is  not  fulfilled,  nor  his  vision 
ended.  Still  the  Divine  Love  is  not  perfectly 
manifest;  still  Saul  is  not  redeemed;  still  faith 
lingers  doubtful,  wanting  the  final  seal. 


"  I  believe  it !  't  is  Thou,  God,  that  givest,  't  is  I  who  receive  : 

In  the  first  is  the  last,  in  Thy  Will  is  my  power  to  believe. 

All 's  one  gift :  Thou  canst  grant  it,  moreover,  as  prompt  to  my 

prayer 

As  I  breathe  out  this  breath,  as  I  open  these  arms  to  the  air. 
From  Thy  will  stream  the  worlds,  life  and   nature,  Thy  dread 

Sabaoth : 

I  will  ?  —  the  mere  atoms  despise  me !     Why  am  I  not  loth 
To  look  that,  even  that  in  thfc  face  too  ?     Why  is  it  I  dare 
Think  but  lightly  of  such  impuissance  ?   What  stops  my  despair  ? 
This ;  —  't  is  not  what  man  Does  which  exalts  him,  but  what 

man  Would  do ! 
See  the  King  —  I  would  help  him,  but  cannot,  the  wishes  fall 

through. 

Could  I  wrestle  to  raise  him  from  sorrow,  grow  poor  to  enrich, 
To  fill  up  his  life,  starve  my  own  out,  I  would  —  knowing  which, 
I  know  that  my  service  is  perfect.  —  Oh,  speak  through  me  now  I 
Would  I  suffer  for  him  that  I  love  ?    So  wouldst  Thou  —  so  wilt 

Thou! 


340         THE    TRIUMPH   OF  THE  SPIRIT 

So  shall  crown  Thee  the  topmost,  ineffablest,  uttermost  crown  — 
And  Thy  love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave  up  nor  down 
One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in  !     It  is  by  no  breath, 
Turn   of   eye,   wave   of  hand,   that   salvation    joins   issue   with 

death ! 

As  Thy  Love  is  discovered  almighty,  almighty  be  proved 
Thy  power,  that  exists  with  and  for  it,  of  being  Beloved ! 
He  who  did  most  shall  bear  most ;  the  strongest  shall  stand  the 

most  weak. 
'T  is  the  weakness  in  strength  that  I  cry  for !    my  flesh  that  I 

seek 

In  the  Godhead !  I  seek  and  I  find  it.  O  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee  :  a  Man  like  to  me, 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever !  a  Hand  like  this 

hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee :  see  the  Christ 

stand."  i 

God  is  found  God  to  David  "in  the  star,  in  the 
stone,  in  the  flesh,  in  the  soul,  in  the  clod."  But 
for  us  who  are  men  He  must  be  found  supremely 
in  the  Fashion  of  a  Man.  The  Divine  Love  is 
hinted  through  nature  ;  but  if  we  are  to  trust  it 
utterly  we  must  behold  it  proved  stronger  than  all 
human  love,  and  our  mortal  power  to  suffer  shame 
unto  death  for  our  beloved  must  be  equaled,  nay 
transcended,  by  the  evident  Deed  of  God.  Such 
is  the  message  of  David;  it  is  the  highest  message 
that  the  poetry  of  the  century  can  bring.  The 
movement  of  "Saul"  reflects  the  movement  of  the 
imagination  of  the  age,  and  leads  us  to  its  final 
triumph.  Only  in  the  Christ  can  the  love  of  God, 
which  gleams  through  nature,  be  supremely  re- 
vealed; only  through  Christ  can  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  be  known. 

1  Strophe  XVHI. 


THE  WITNESS   OF  THE  SPIRIT         341 

4.    The    Witness  of  the  Spirit. 

Thus  the  cycle  of  our  poetry  is  complete.  We 
travel  from  the  serene  faith  contemplative  of 
Wordsworth  at  the  beginning  to  the  serene  faith 
militant  of  Browning  at  the  end.  Mysticism  and 
realism  meet  in  the  work  of  Wordsworth,  who 
sees  in  life  at  once  the  natural  and  the  divine. 
The  imagination  of  the  poets  who  follow  gropes  in 
vain  among  ideals  of  the  past  and  in  its  own  re- 
cesses for  this  great  synthesis  between  the  flesh 
and  soul.  By  Browning  alone,  uplifted  to  wider 
outlook  by  clear  faith  in  immortality,  mysticism 
and  realism  meet  again  at  last,  and  the  full  syn- 
thesis is  achieved.  The  good  of  this  world,  the 
glory  of  the  next,  are  alike  his  heritage. 

Our  English  poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century 
moves  from  vision  to  vision,  though  between  the 
heights  lay  an  arid  country,  lightened  only  by 
mirage.  The  glowing  intuitions  of  the  Divine  in 
man  and  nature  which  quicken  and  sustain  our 
earlier  poets  are  vindicated  by  a  victory  wrested 
out  of  sharp  experience  and  bitter  battle  by  the 
later  and  more  militant  men.  But  not  only  are 
these  first  intuitions  verified :  a  faith  is  gained  of 
more  daring  sweep,  outward  and  upward.  The 
early  poetry  of  the  .century  restored  to  the  world 
the  lost  faith  in  a  Universal  Spirit,  the  source  of 
life  and  love.  The  faith  brought  new  freedom  to 
the  human  soul.  Strengthened  by  its  might  the 
imagination  passed  onward;  out  from  contempla- 
tion to  action,  from  solitude  to  fellowship,  from 


342         THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

the  impersonal  to  the  personal  life.  The  natural 
world  opened  into  Eternity;  the  God,  dimly  de- 
scried through  the  forms  of  nature,  was  supremely 
manifest  in  the  form  of  Man.  After  long  search- 
ings,  the  Witness  of  the  Spirit  was  to  the  Father 
and  the  Son.  From  pantheism  towards  Christian- 
ity :  this  is  the  spiritual  pilgrimage  of  our  modern 
English  poets. 


s& 

INDEX  (DIVERSITY 


\« 


ACTION,  dominant  theme  of  the  Vic- 
torian poets,  317-321. 

Addison,  158  ;  the  Cato  of,  150. 

JSscbylus,  59,  100,  160,  253;  the 
Prometheus  of,  109. 

Agnosticism,  prefigured  in  Words- 
worth, 67,  68 ;  expressed  by  Shel- 
ley, 116,  117,  119,  144;  prevalent 
tone  of  modern  poetry,  233,  239, 
240,  244,  246;  in  the  poets  of 
doubt,  246-268;  in  the  poets  of 
art,  268-280;  in  Tennyson,  286, 

290,  291,  292 ;  possible  faith  of  the 
future,   293,   294;    named    by    the 
19th  century,  297  ;  transcended  by 
the    greatest   modern   poets,    299, 
300,  333,  335. 

Alice  through  the  Looking-glass,  31, 
32. 

Altruism,  appearance  of  in  modern 
life,  117,  118, 119,  174,  297,  298. 

Amiel,  265. 

Apologies  in  the  poetry  of  Browning, 
233,  237. 

Ariosto,  17,  29,  186 ;  Orlando  Furioso 
of,  29. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  26,  27,  44,  53,  59, 
67, 147, 155,  176,  180,  182,  185,  186, 
197,  198,  205,  237;  exponent  of 
neo-paganism,  156,  157,  159,  163, 
164,  166,  170,  171 ;  chronological 
place  among  Victorian  poets,  243  ; 
the  poet  of  doubt,  247-264 ;  com- 
pared with  Cloiigh,  265-268,  269, 
282, 283 ;  compared  with  Tennyson, 

291,  292,  318,  320,  324, 326 ;  relation 
to  Christianity,  330,  331. 

Works  discussed:  Balder  Dead, 
147,  252  ;  The  Buried  Life,  252 ; 
Dover  Beach,  252 ;  Empedocles  on 
JStna,  157,  163-165,  179,  182,  248, 
253,  283  ;  The  Forsaken  Merman, 
254  ;  The  Future,  254 ;  The  Grande 
Chartreuse,  147,  256;  Literature 
and  Dogma,  247  ;  Sohrab  and  Rus- 
tum,  252;  The  Strayed  Reveller, 
159,  271 ;  The  Summer  Night,  252. 

Quotations  from  :  Empedocles  on 
-Etna,  159,  164,  254,  263;  The 
Forsaken  Merman,  256 ;  The 
Grande  Chartreuse,  256,  261 ;  In 


Utrumque  Paratus,  258 ;  Obermann, 
258,  332  ;  Obermann  Once  More, 
260  ;  Quiet  Work,  259  ;  Resigna- 
tion, 255;  Self-Dependence,  254, 
266  ;  Self-Deception,  326 ;  A 
Southern  Night,  259;  Stagirius, 
231 ;  Switzerland,  255,  262. 

Arnold,  Dr.  Thomas,  242,  250. 

Asceticism,  element  in  medisevalism. 
175, 176, 179,  180,  183,  184. 

Assisi,  172,  175,  187. 

Augustan  age,  the  art  of,  41. 

Bellamy,  136. 

Beowulf,  48. 

Blake,  25,  31,  57,  63. 

Blake,  quoted,  196,  269. 

Botticelli,  193. 

Bourget,  Paul,  quoted,  293-296. 

Brougham,  84,  241. 

Browning,  Robert,  1,  3,  4,  7,  25,  26, 
27,  44,  54,  62,  68,  93,  94,  148,  151, 
153, 157, 176  ;  affinity  for  the  renais- 
sance, 186,  187,  193,  194,  197 ;  as  a 
humorist,  201-238 ;  chronological 
position,  241,  243,  244  ;  the  poet  of 
action,  317,  319 ;  the  poet  of  man, 
320,  321 ;  the  poet  of  immortality, 
324,  325  ;  the  poet  of  spiritual  need, 
300, 328,  329 ;  the  poet  of  Christian- 
ity, 333-341. 

Poems  mentioned :  Any  Wife  to 
Any  Husband,  228  ;  Aristophanes' 
Apology,  157,  212,  213  ;  Asolando, 
237,  334;  Balaustion's  Adventure, 
157  ;  Bifurcation,  228 ;  Bishop 
Blougram's  Apology,  211,  219 ; 
Bishop  at  St.  Praxed's,  186 ;  Blot  on 
the  'Scutcheon,  210,  211 ;  Colombo's 
Birthday,  210,  211;  Christmas 
Eve,  217,  336,  337  ;  Caliban  upon 
Setebos,  336,  337;  Confessions, 
211 ;  A  Death  in  the  Desert,  236, 
337  ;  Dis  Aliter  Visum,  228  ; 
Echetlos,  160  ;  Easter  Day,  336, 
337,  338  ;  Ferishtah's  Fancies,  334  ; 
Fifine  at  the  Fair,  212,  213,  226, 
227,  235,  237  ;  Fra  Lippo  Lippi, 
187,  188,  211 ;  The  Flight  of  the 
Duchess,  211,  229 ;  The  Heretic's 
Tragedy,  176,  225;  Holy  Cross 


344 


INDEX 


Day,  211,  216;  The  Inn  Album, 
212,  232 ;  James  Lee's  Wife,  228  ; 
A  Likeness,  215;  Luria,  210,  211  ; 
Master  Hugues  of  Saxe-Gotha,  211 ; 
Men  and  Women,  211 ;  Old  Mas- 
ters in  Florence,  187  ;  Paracelsus, 
10,  11,  148,  209,  213,  218,  334; 
Pauline,  209,  213,  241;  Prospice, 
243;  Pheidippides,  159,  160; 
Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwangau,  212, 
213  ;  Pippa  Passes,  210  ;  The  Ring 
and  the  Book,  23,  94,  211,  212,  213, 
219,  220-223,  234,  245,  325  ;  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra,  325 ;  Red  Cotton 
Nightcap  Country,  212,  213; 
Return  of  the  Druses,  210,  211; 
Saul,  281,  336,  338,  339 ;  Sordello, 
148,  209;  The  Statue  and  the 
Bust,  228;  Sibrandus  Schafnabur- 
gensis,  229  ;  Soliloquy  in  a  Spanish 
Cloister,  229  ;  Sludge,  208,  211  ;  A 
Soul's  Tragedy,  210,  211 ;  Up  at  a 
Villa,  211. 

Characters  mentioned  :  Andrea 
del  Sarto,  193;  Aristophanes,  236; 
Bertrand,  210;  Blougram,  219, 
223,  224,  237;  Braccio,  210,  223, 

228,  229  ;  Caponsacchi,  26,  93,  220  ; 
Caliban,   216,   224 ;    Chiappino,  26, 
225;     Colombe,    26;    Djabal,    26, 
225 ;    Don   Hyacinthus,    221 ;    Don 
Juan,     224,     236;      Elvire,     218; 
Fifine,  219 ;    Guido,  220,  221,  222, 

229,  235;    The  Grammarian,   216, 
2S6 ;     Jules,    219,  223  ;    Johannes 

.  Agricola,  216,  225;  Leonce  Mi- 
randa, 224,  236 ;  Luria,  228,  229  ; 
Luigi,  219  ;  Melchior,  210  ;  Ogni- 
beu,  210;  Ottima,  26;  Ned  Bratts, 
209,  216;  The  Pied  Piper,  214; 
Pompilia,  208,  219,  220,  223,  235  ; 
Porphyria's  Lover,  216,  225;  The 
Pope,  220,  235;  Sludge,  224; 
Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwangau,  237  ; 
St.  John,  224  ;  Tresham,  26,  223. 

Passages  quoted :  Bishop  Blou- 
gram's  Apology,  317,  335  ;  Christine 
to  Monaldeschi,  26  ;  Christmas  Eve, 
233  ;  Easter  Day,  199 ;  Epilogue  to 
Dramatis  Person*,  321  ;  Fifine  at 
the  Fair,  227;  Fra  Lippo  Lippi, 
189  ;  Luria,  284 ;  At  the  Mermaid, 
233 ;  Paracelsus,  11 ;  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,  221,  222,  223-325;  La 
Saisiaz,  324 ;  Saul,  55,  322,  339. 

Burne-Jones,  275. 

Burns,  25,  203. 

Byron,  67,  74,  77,  84,  154,  203,  204, 
206,  231,  232,  241,  249,  307,  309, 
312,  320,  329  ;  Manfred,  217  ;  Don 
Juan,  231,  232. 

Carducci,  96. 

Carlyle,  40,  63,  73,  74;  compared 
with  Wordsworth,  85-89;  Sartor 
Resartus,  241 ;  quoted,  40,  73. 


Castle  of  Otranto,  30. 

Cervantes,  202,  215,  230. 

Change,  attitude  towards  in  older 
literature,  14-19  ;  in  modern  litera- 
ture, 20-22. 

Chartism,  242,  243. 

Chateaubriand,  154. 

Chaucer,  15,  17,  18,  23,  48,  49,  145, 
203,  252 ;  the  Knighte's  Tale,  48 ; 
the  Nonne-priest's  Tale,  48 ;  the 
Prologue,  23,  48. 

Chaucer,  quoted :  The  Parlement  of 
Foules,  18  ;  The  Knighte's  Tale,  48. 

Chivalry,  element  in  medievalism, 
175,  176,  183,  186. 

Christianity  :  Christian  Pantheism  in 
Paracelsus,  11  ;  Christian  sources 
of  Dante  and  Spenser,  100 ;  mysti- 
cism of,  compared  with  mysticism 
of  modern  Pantheism,  130-133; 
relation  to  neo-paganism,  165,  166, 
179,  180  ;  relation  to  the  renais- 
sance, 188,  191,  192;  impulse 
towards  in  early  Victorian  age, 
242 ;  influence  of,  on  Arnold  and 
Clough,  250,  260,  265  ;  on  Rossetti, 
271-273  ;  on  Tennyson  and  In 
Memoriam,  282,  286;  rejected  by 
revolutionary  poets,  309,  310; 
Catholic  element  in  their  faith, 
316 ;  sought  and  attained  by  the 
Victorian  poets,  321-340,  342. 

Church,  the,  symbolism  of,  34; 
Wordsworth's  attitude  towards,  69, 
70,  71 ;  attitude  of  Dante,  Spen- 
ser, Shelley  towards,  103;  in  the 
Faerie  Queene,  106,  135  ;  attitude 
of  Rossetti  towards,  271 ;  unfaith- 
fulness during  the  first  of  the  cen- 
tury, 309,  316,  323. 

Church,  the  Established,  the  home 
of  respectability,  74,  241. 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  26,  27,  44,  53, 
67,  147,  176,  185,  204,  205,  206;. 
compared  with  Browning  as  a 
humorist,  231,  232,  235;  chrono- 
logical place,  243  ;  the  poet  of 
doubt,  245,  265-268  ;  compared  with 
poets  of  art,  269,  271  ;  compared 
with  Tennyson,  281,  282,  291,  292; 
plea  for  action  in,  317,  318,  320; 
Christian  instincts  in,  326,  329,  330. 
Poems  mentioned  :  The  Bothie 
of  Tober-na-Vuolich,  271;  Dipsy- 
chus,  231,  283. 

Poems  quoted  :  266 ;  Easter  Day, 
320,  331 ;  Hope  Evermore  and  Be- 
lieve, 318  ;  Through  a  Glass  Darkly, 
326  ;  'Yfjivbs  av/uvos,  267. 

Coleridge.  Samuel  Taylor,  60, 175, 203, 
241,  242,  270,  307,  309,  312,  329. 

Poems  mentioned.  The  Ancient 
Mariner,  61,  63,  147,  312;  Christa- 
bel,  146,  175. 

Color,  use  of,  in  modern  literature,  47- 
51. 


INDEX 


345 


Contemplation,  spirit  dominant  from 
Wordsworth  to  Keats,  301-319. 

Cowley,  41. 

Covvper,  17,  20,  45,  307. 

Quoted  :  The  Task,  Book  I.,  20  ; 
Book  III.,  45. 

Dalton,  7. 

Dante,  2,  17,  34,  44,  72, 145,  182,  226, 
227,  245,  267,  283,  297,  305;  Com- 
pared with  Shelley,  96-144. 

Quotations  from :  Divina  Corn- 
media,  Par.  iii..  139  ;  xiv.,  125,  126 ; 
xxxi.,  103;  Purg.  xxvii.,  141 ;  xxx., 
105 ;  xxxi.,  125. 

Darwin,  Charles,  7,  11,  36;  Origin  of 
Species,  10. 

Darwin,  Erasmus,  54. 

Decadence,  notes  of,  in  modern  po- 
etry, 292-296. 

Dekker,  214. 

Delusions,  as  treated  by  Browning, 
224-227. 

Democracy,  1,  2,  3,  5  ;  Wordsworth's 
relation  to,  57-95  ;  feeble  in  Victo- 
rian poets,  206 ;  social,  struggle  for, 
inaugurated,  242,  278  ;  power  on 
modern  poetry,  297,  298,  299,  317. 

Dickens,  214,  215,  241. 

Dobson,  148,  214. 

Donne,  30,  32  ;  quoted,  30. 

Doubt,  poetry  of,  see  Agnosticism. 

Dowden,  Edward,  quoted,  161. 

Drama,  appearance  of,  in  Victorian 
age,  320;  in  Browning,  329;  old 
English,  149, 150,  216,  218. 

East,  religion  of  the,  319. 

Eclecticism,  in  first  and  second  re- 
naissance, 190-196. 

Edinburgh  Review,  31,  241. 

Elizabeth,  art  of  the  age  of,  41,  43, 
149-151,  155,  158. 

Emerson,  72,  201,  207,  291,  313; 
quoted,  22,  201,  308. 

Eros,  Greek,  mediaeval,  of  the  renais- 
sance, 173,  174,  195. 

Evolution,  see  Science. 

Fletcher,  54,  155  ;  quoted,  17. 

Flower  and  the  Leafe,  The,  quoted,  49. 

Ford,  150. 

Fors  Clavigera,  87. 

Francis,  St.,  of  Assisi,  172. 

Frankenstein,  216. 

Germany,  148. 

Giotto,  172,  187. 

Gladstone,  color-theory  of,  48. 

Goethe,  10,  59,  189,  218,  305 ;  Faust, 

quoted,  317. 
Gosse,  quoted,  31. 
Government,  Wordsworth's  attitude 

towards,  81,  91. 
Gray,  17. 
Greece,  145,  149,  150,  155,  156,  158, 


159,  163,  164,  170,  172, 174, 192, 197, 
276. 
Grotesque  art,  see  Humor. 

Harrison,  Frederic,  207. 

Harvey,  quoted,  31. 

Heine,  228. 

Holland,  Lady,  242. 

Homer,  44,  48,  118. 

Hugo,  Victor,  234. 

Humor,  character  of,  in  early  litera- 
ture, 29 ;  in  modern,  31  ;  inconsis- 
tent with  idealism,  202-205  ;  nature 
of,  207  ;  grotesque  art,  216,  217, 
218 ;  ironic  art,  218  ;  relation  to 
pessimism,  230. 

Idealism,  devoted  to  practical  reform, 
81  ;  in  art,  96  ;  relation  to  politics, 
102  ;  relation  to  humor,  201,  202 ; 
dominant  in  revolutionary  poets, 
301-317. 

Immortality,  theme  of  In  Memoriam, 
12, 282, 285-289, 334;  conquest  of,  by 
the  poets,  321-327, 334, 339, 340, 342. 

Individualism,  place  in  development 
of  democracy,  66,  92-94,  298;  in 
Dante,  119. 

Industry,  modern  system  of,  73,  74, 
297 ;  Wordsworth'sattitudetowards, 
78-89  ;  revolt  against,  242,  243. 

Ironic  art,  see  Humor. 

Jeffrey,  84. 

Keats,  John,  46,  61,  66,  71, 152,  155, 
180,  185,  197,  198,  203,  226, 240, 241, 
270,  281,  307  ;  exponent  of  neo-pa- 
ganism,  156,  159,  163, 171  ;  spirit  of 
contemplation  in,  302-303 ;  religion 
of,  309,  313,  315,  317,  329. 

Poems  mentioned  :  To  Autumn, 
302  ;  Endymion,  146, 152,  156  ;  Eve 
of  St.  Agnes,  147,  185 ;  Hyperion, 
147,  156, 160,  179  ;  Lamia,  147,  156  ; 
To  Melancholy,  302  ;  To  a  Nightin- 
gale, 302  ;  On  a  Grecian  Urn,  302 ; 
prose  quotation,  273. 

Poems  quoted  :  Endymion,  302  ; 
Hyperion,  47  ;  Ode  to  Melancholy, 
302  ;  Ode  to  Psyche,  156 ;  Ode  on 
a  Grecian  Urn,  313 ;  Ode  "  Bards 
of  Passion  and  of  Mirth,"  303. 

Kempis,  Thomas  a,  267. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  22,  177,  178,  181 ; 
Saints'  Tragedy,  177,  179,  182  ; 
lines  quoted,  181. 

Lamb,  77. 

Landor,  156,  176  ;  Hellenics,  179  ; 
Pericles  and  Aspasia,  156  ;  quoted, 
40. 

Lang,  148. 
j  Lanier,  175. 

'  Law,  sense  for,  absent  in  Elizabethan 
age,  41 ;  present  in  Augustan  age, 


346 


INDEX 


41  ;  in  modern  age,  43  ;  "Words- 
worth's reverence  for,  69,  70,  90  ; 
Shelley's  hatred  of,  103,  139,  140 ; 
Dante's  reverence  for,  139. 

Liberty,  Wordsworth's  conception  of, 
70,  90;  importance  in  the  revolu- 
tion, 106,  107. 143  ;  Dante's  concep- 
tion of,  139, 141, 142  ;  Shelley's  con- 
ception of,  140;  Swinburne's  con- 
ception of,  280. 

Lincoln,  quoted,  75. 

Luther,  148. 

Macaulay,  74,  84,  241. 

Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  178  ;  Morte  d' Ar- 
thur, quoted,  22,  23. 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  242,  281. 

Middle  Ages,  the,  expressed  in  the 
Divine  Comedy,  96,  97  ;  Influence 
in  modern  literature,  172-185. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  242,  243. 

Millet,  76,  77. 

Milton,  17,  19,  22,  203,  245,  253,  254, 
283;  Paradise  Lost,  19;  Lycidas, 
269 ;  quoted,  19  ;  Paradise  Lost, 
Book  VII.,  254. 

Modern  Painters,  88. 

Moore,  241. 

Morris,  William,  1,  50,  53,  136,  323; 
compared  with  Wordsworth,  89,  90, 
94  ;  inflrenced  by  the  past,  148, 157, 
177,  178,  186,  194,  197 ;  conception 
of  life,  244,  269,  270,  274-278,  279. 

Poems  mentioned :  The  Earthly 
Paradise,  157,  276 ;  Sigurd  the  Vol- 
sung,  276. 

Poems  quoted  :  The  Earthly  Para- 
dise, Ogier  the  Dane,  51  ;  Epilogue 
to  The  Earthly  Paradise,  277. 

Motion,  in  modern  nature-poetry,  see 
Change. 

Mysticism,  35, 176, 180, 183,  184  ;  rela- 
tion to  realism,  195,  200,202,  275,341. 

Nature,  modern  attitude  towards,  10, 
11, 12, 14-22, 33-37,  45-51 ;  Shelley's 
impersonation  of,  130-136,  143  ; 
return  to,  watchword  of  the  rev- 
olution, 154  ;  Arnold's  attitude 
towards,  256-259  ;  Tennyson's  con- 
ception of,  287-289  ;  spiritual  mes- 
sage of,  to  poets  of  the  revolution, 
306-314  ;  to  Victorian  poets,  319. 

Neo-paganism,  first  appearance  of  in 
Shelley,  100,  131 ;  in  modem  po- 
etry, 156-172  ;  phase  of  first  renais- 
sance, 191,  192. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  176,  178,  181,  183, 
242,' 250;  Dream  of  Gerontius,  176, 
179  ;  Callista  quoted,  179. 

Nihilism,  possibility  of  in  the  future, 
294,  295. 

Obedience,  true  principle  of  poetry, 
43 ;  central  word  of  Dante,  139  ; 
fresco  by  Giotto,  172. 


Obermann,  260. 

(Edipus-Tale,  the,  223. 

Optimism  in  Browning,  202,  233,  234. 

Origin  of  Species,  10. 

Oxford  Movement,  174,  242,  250. 

Pantheism, Christian,  in  Browning,!!  ; 
in  Wordsworth  and  Carlyle,  85  ;  in 
the  Prometheus  Unbound  of  Shel- 
ley, 130-136,  143;  distinctive  atti- 
tude of  the  poets  of  the  revolution, 
309-315  ;  relation  to  Christianity, 
316  ;  transcended  by  the  Victorian 
poets,  319,  321,  323,  328,  329,  335, 
336,  341,  342. 

Pascal,  293. 

Pater,  quoted,  189. 

Pattison,  Mark,  265. 

Peel,  84. 

Personality,  sense  for,  influence  of 
science  on,  22-26 ;  place  of  in  poe- 
try of  Wordsworth,  93  ;  in  the 
poetry  of  the  revolution,  315,  316  ; 
in  Victorian  poetry,  319-321,  327- 
340,  342. 

Perugino,  175, 191. 

Pessimism,  associated  with  the  hu- 
morist, 230  ;  possible  attitude  of 
the  future,  294,  295. 

Plato,  136. 

Politics,  the  attitude  of  the  idealist 
towards,  102  ;  in  Dante,  Spenser, 
Shelley,  102,  103  ;  effect  of  on 
Wordsworth,  73-75. 

Pope,  158  ;  Essay  on  Man,  27. 

Pre-Raphaelitism,  affinity  for  the 
past,  147,  148,  197  ;  for  the  Middle 
Ages,  174, 177  ;  for  the  renaissance, 
186,193;  seriousness  of ,  204  :  chro- 
nological place  of,  244  ;  spiritual 
progression  in,  269-280. 

Psyche,  symbol  of  the  soul,  195. 

Pusey,  250. 

Rabelais,  202,  223,  226,  230. 

Raleigh,  155. 

Raphael,  187,  191,  195. 

Realism,  controlling  modern  poetry, 
37-41,  61,  298  ;  resultant  enlarge- 
ment of  poetic  scope,  43-51 ;  dan- 
gers and  safeguards  of,  53-56  ;  pre- 
sents life  individualized,  96  ;  rela- 
tion to  mysticism,  195,  200,  202, 
270,  275,  341  ;  relation  to  humor, 
202,  204,  206,  207,  215  ;  dominant  in 
Victorian  poets,  301,  317,  341. 

Rebel,  significance  of  as  hero,  108. 

Redemption,  revolutionary  concep- 
tion of,  14  ;  ideals  of,  mediaeval  and 
modern,  96-144 ;  growing  cry  for, 
328-332  ;  met  in  Christianity,  333- 
340. 

Reflection,  poetry  of,  characteristic- 
ally modern,  2,  61 ;  formed  by  ev- 
olutionary methods,  26-28  ;  expres- 
sion of  doubt,  239,  240,  244-246  ;  in 


INDEX 


347 


Arnold  and  Clough,  247-268  ;  In 
Memoriam,  best  instance  of,  281- 
292  ;  fusion  with  dramatic  method, 
320. 

Reformation,  the,  96. 

Reform  Bill,  Wordsworth's  feeling 
for,  74,  75. 

Reign  of  Terror,  the,  67. 

Renaissance,  the,  reflected  in  Spenser, 
96,  97,  107,  113,  114, 118  ;  influence 
on  modern  literature,  185-196,  198, 
199. 

Renan,  294. 

Revolution,  power  inherent  in  the,  2  ; 
idea  of  progress  in  the,  13,  14  ;  re- 
lation of  Wordsworth  to,  60,  64-71 ; 
religious  ideals  of,  expressed  in 
Shelley's  Prometheus  Unbound,  97- 
144  ;  spiritual  outlook  of  poets  of 
the,  301-316,  317,  320,  321,  323, 341. 

Rogers,  241. 

Romanticism,  61,  175,  176,  180,  270, 
275,  281. 

Rome,  149,  155,  161. 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  22,  31,  148, 
197,  254,  255  ;  affinity  for  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  177,  178,  182,  183 ;  for  the 
renaissance,  186,  193,  196  ;  chrono- 
logical place  in  Victorian  age,  244 ; 
head  of  the  poets  of  art,  269,  270, 
271-274  ;  compared  with  Morris, 
275,  277,  278  ;  compared  with  Swin- 
burne, 278,  279. 

Poems  mentioned  :  Ave,  275 ;  The 
House  of  Life,  274;  Jenny,  148; 
Last  Days,  274;  Rose-Mary,  273; 
Soothsay,  274 ;  Staff  and  Scrip,  183 ; 
World's  Worth,  275. 

Poems  quoted  :  The  Portrait,  31 ; 
Mary's  Girlhood,  272 ;  The  Cloud- 
Confines,  273. 

Rossetti,  William  Michael,  quoted,  136. 

Rousseau,  154. 

Ruskin,  186  ;  compared  with  Words- 
worth, 87,  88,  89;  Fors  Clavigera, 
87  ;  Modern  Painters,  88. 

Science,  modern,  2,  3,  68,  146,  204, 
297,  299,  300,  319, 321 ;  influence  on 
modern  poets,  5-56 ;  work  accom- 
plished, 57  ;  factor  in  first  and 
second  renaissance,  187,  195  ;  ap- 
pearance in  Victorian  age,  243, 244 ; 
influence  on  Tennyson,  281,  289  ; 
French  view  of  the  result  of,  293- 
295. 

Schopenhauer,  295. 

Scott,  24,  174,  175,  176,  183,  270. 

Shakespeare,  15,  24,  32, 38,  44, 59, 118, 
145,  149,  150,  155,  203,  246, 254,  297. 
Works  mentioned  :  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  150;  Coriolanus,  149, 
150;  Hamlet,  38,  118,  150;  Henry 
IV.,  145;  Julius  Caesar,  38,  148, 
150  ;  Lear,  149  ;  Macbeth,  17,  38, 
149 ;  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 


149;  Othello,  220;  Pericles,  155; 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  220 ;  The  Tem- 
pest, 145,  246. 

Passages  quoted :  Sonnet,  15 ; 
Macbeth,  254. 

Shelley,  Mary,  journal  quoted,  92. 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  2,  3,  7,  14, 
15,  21,  36,  44,  47,  50,  147,  156,  161, 
197,  203,  207,  208,  209,  213,  219,  226, 
239,  240,  241,  243,  249,  256,  257,  283, 
296 ;  compared  with  Wordsworth, 
as  pioneer  of  social  democracy,  57, 
58,  59,  61,  66,  67,  69,  72,  81,  84,  91, 
92,  94 ;  religious  and  social  ideals, 
compared  with  those  of  Dante,  96- 
144 ;  spiritual  outlook  of,  300.  301, 
307,  309,  310-316,  317,  320,  32TT323, 
326,  329,  330,  332,  335,  339. 

Poems  mentioned  :  Adonais,  283, 
311,  314,  323 ;  Epipsychidion,  311 ; 
Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty,  311 ; 
Prometheus  Unbound,  10,  66,  96- 
144, 147, 156,  239,  296,  326. 

Quotations  from :  Adonais,  313, 
314  ;  Chorus  from  Hellas,  16,  161 ; 
Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty,  3JL2_; 
Lyric,  129  ;  Mont  Blanc,  310  ;  Pro- 
metheus Unbound,  act  i.,  107,  108, 
117,  118,  128,  326  ;  act  ii.,  123,  124, 
239,  240,  309 ;  act  iii.,  107,  129,  140  ; 
act  iv.,  11,  50  ;  Song,  307  ;  The  Sun- 
set, 21 ;  Odejboth.e  West  Wind,  16. 

Signorelli,  Luca,  175. 

Sin,  attitude  towards,  in  Dante,  Spen- 
ser, and  Shelley,  104,  105, 109,  112- 
116  ;  in  the  revolutionary  poets, 
328,  329  ;  in  the  Victorian  poets, 
329-332. 

Slavery,  industrial,  attacked  by 
Wordsworth,  79,  80. 

Smith,  Sydney,  241. 

Socialism,  Wordsworth's  relation  to, 
89-92 ;  place  in  the  development  of 
democracy,  92-94  ;  under  form  of 
altruism,  117,  118,  174 ;  Morris  the 
prophet  of,  197. 

Social  movement,  the,  not  a  subject 
of  English  poetry,  1  ;  result  yet 
unknown,  5,  7,  143  ;  Wordsworth,  a 
pioneer  in  the,  58,  60 ;  in  Carlyle, 
85-87  ;  in  Ruskin,  87-89 ;  in  Morris, 
89,  278  ;  in  Wordsworth,  90-94  ; 
appearance  of  new  social  ideal,  74  ; 
promise  of  social  agitation,  242, 
243 ;  absent  as  motif  in  Arnold  and 
Clough,  265  ;  slight  influence  on  In 
Memoriam,  285  ;  slight  traces  of,  in 
the  poets,  297,  298,  317. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  13,  15,  17,  34,  46, 
47,  49,  149,  158,  186,  203,  245; 
Faerie  Queene,  46,  50 ;  compared 
with  Divine  Comedy  and  Prome- 
theus Unbound,  96-145,  149,  185, 
203 ;  Cantos  on  Mutability,  13,  15. 

Quoted :  Cantos  on  Mutability, 
13 ;  Faerie  Queene,  Book  I.,  canto 


348 


INDEX 


i.,  46;  canto  xii.,  22,  123;  canto 
ix.,  126,  127  ;  Book  II.,  canto  xii., 
17. 

Strauss,  337. 

Supernatural,  treatment  of,  in  older 
poetry,  38  ;  absence  in  modern,  39. 

Swift,  202,  215,  223,  230. 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  1,  14, 
54  ;  reversion  towards  the  past, 
148,  151,  152,  197;  neo-paganism 
of,  155,  157,  159,  160,  166-172,  198; 
mediaeval  revival  in,  177,  178,  180, 
181 ;  renaissance,  studies  of,  186, 
193 ;  place  in  Victorian  chronology, 
244  ;  spiritual  attitude,  last  term 
of  aesthetic  school,  209,  270,  275, 
278-280 ;  drama  of,  320 ;  denial  of 
immortality,  323,  326. 

Poems  mentioned :  Atalanta  in 
Calydon,  157,  166-169, 170  ;  Chaste- 
lard,  278;  Erechtheus,  157;  The 
Garden  of  Proserpine,  278;  Hymn 
to  Proserpine,  157  ;  Lans  Veneris, 
186. 

Passages  quoted  :  Atalanta  in 
Calydon,  160, 168, 169,  326  ;  Garden 
of  Proserpine,  278 ;  Hymn  to  Pros- 
erpine, 166. 

Symbolism,  its  source  in  instinct,  33, 

.  34 ;  its  sanction  in  general  prin- 
ciple, 35,  36 ;  symbols  of  deliver- 
ance in  Dante,  Spenser,  Shelley, 
119-133;  of  triumph,  133-138;  in 
the  pre-Raphaelites,  blended  with 
realism,  270,  275. 

Tannhauser,  the  legend  of,  192. 

Tasso,  17,  186. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  1, 11,  22,  26, 44,  47, 
53,  68,  146,  147,  151,  197,  204,  206, 
234  ;  classical  influences  in,  156, 
160,  162 ;  medifeval  influences  in, 
178,  179,  180,  183,  184 ;  renaissance 
influence  in,  185,  194 ;  place  in  Vic- 
torian chronology,  244  ;  studied 
through  In  Memoriam,  281-292  ; 
spiritual  outlook  of,  317,  318,  320, 
321,  324,  328,  329,  333,  335. 

Poems  mentioned  :  Enoch  Arden, 
93;  The  Higher  Pantheism,  32; 
Idylls  of  the  King,  23,  147,  178, 
182, 184  ;  The  Lady  of  Shalott,  178 ; 
The  Lotus-Eaters,  156;  In  Memo- 
riam, 10,  12,  16,  28,  147,  245,  281- 
292,  324,  333,  334,  337  ;  ^none,  156, 
179  ;  The  Palace  of  Art,  185,  194, 
281  ;  Saint  Agnes'  Eve,  178,  179, 
180;  Siint  Simeon  Stylites,  151, 
178,  179,  182  ;  Sir  Galahad,  178, 
184  ;  Tithonus,  156,  163  ;  The  Two 
Voices,  290,  291 ;  Ulysses,  156. 

Poems  quoted  :  Sir  Galahad,  184 ; 
Morte  d'Arthur,  160 ;  The  Palace  of 
Art,  194 ;  In  Memoriam,  Prologue, 
333,  334;  canto  xlvii.,  324;  canto 
Ivi.,  12  ;  canto  xcvi.,  291 ;  canto 


cxxiii.,  16  ;  canto  cxxiv.,  291 ;  canto 
cxxxi.,  286,  325 ;  Epilogue,  321 ;  The 
Two  Voices,  290. 

Thackeray,  241. 

Thomson,  17,  22,  45,  307. 

Thoreau,  158. 

Tolstoy,  76. 

Tory  politics,  Wordsworth's  relation 
to,  58,  75,  84. 

Tourneur,  217. 

Trades  Unions,  Wordsworth's  atti- 
tude to,  82. 

Trees,  treatment  of,  in  early  and  later 
poetry  compared,  46,  47. 

Twain,  Mark,  215. 

Unity,  conception  of,  absent  in  for- 
mer literature,  28-31  ;  appearance 
in  modern  literature,  31-35 ;  influ- 
ence on  poetry,  35-37  ;  dangers  of, 
53  ;  vindication  of,  55. 

Utopias,  conceptions  of,  136,  137. 

Victorian  Age,  poetry  of,  1,  2  ;  at- 
traction towards  the  past,  146-156, 
196 ;  mediaeval  reaction  in  the,  174, 
176 ;  absence  of  humor  in,  204. 
206  ;  conditions  and  chronology  of, 
241-244  ;  relation  to  Arnold  and 
Clough,  265  ;  Tennyson's  relation 
to,  281,  282,  299  ;  passion  for  action 
in  poetry  of,  317-319 ;  passion  for 
humanity,  319,  321  ;  search  for 
immortality,  321-327  ;  search  for 
Christ,  327-340. 

Virgil,  quoted,  111. 

Watts,  Theodore,  quoted,  270. 

Webster,  155,  225,  232. 

Whigs,  the,  73,  75. 

Whitman,  quoted,  7,  234. 

Wonder,  modern  renaissance  of,  270, 
306,  310. 

Wordsworth,  William,  2,  3,  8,  12,  13, 
14,  18,  22,  25,  36,  38,  44,  46,  47, 147, 
152,  156,  158,  162,  175, 197,  240,  241, 
249,  257,  300 ;  relation  to  the  new 
democracy,  57-95 ;  compared  with 
Browning,  203,  207,  208,  216,  219, 
237 ;  gospel  of  contemplation  in, 
303-308;  spiritual  outlook  of,  309, 
313-318,  320,  321,  325,  329,  335,  341. 
Poems  mentioned  :  Animal  Tran- 
quillity and  Decay,  61 ;  The  Border- 
ers, 61 ;  Dion,  156  ;  The  Excursion, 
71,  77,  78,  80,  91,  203  ;  The  Female 
Vagrant,  61 ;  Guilt  and  Sorrow,  78 ; 
Humanity,  79 ;  Highland  Girl,  203, 
208;  Laodamia,  156, 162 ;  The  Leech- 
Gatherer,  93, 208, 304 ;  Lucy,  poems, 
22,  93,  208 ;  Lyrical  Ballads,  60-64  ; 
Michael,  93,  208 ;  Ode  on  the  Inti- 
mations of  Immortality,  73,  322, 
325;  The  Prelude,  64-68,  74,  322; 
Peter  Bell,  203,  329  ;  Retirement, 
86 ;  Sonnets  to  Liberty  and  Order, 


INDEX 


349 


93;  Tintern  Abbey,  61,  85;  The 
Warning,  58;  We  are  Seven,  63; 
The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone,  93, 147, 
175,  304. 

Passages  quoted  :  The  Affliction 
of  Margaret,  39;  At  Bologna,  70; 
Ecclesiastical  Sonnets,  70 ;  The  Ex- 
cursion, Book  I.,  76,77,  Book  III., 
304;  Book  VII.,  47;  Book  VIII., 
80,  83 ;  Book  IX.,  81, 82  ;  The  Green 
Linnet,  18  ;  Humanity,  79  ;  Laoda- 
mia,  162 ;  Lowther,  87 ;  Memory, 


72 ;  The  Pass  of  Kirkstone,  70  ;  The 
Prelude,  Book  I.,  306,  313;  Book 
II.,  314;  Book  VL,  69,  322;  Book 
XI.,  25;  The  Recluse,  304*  Lines 
above  Tintern  Abbey,  305,  311 ;  The 
White  Doe  of  Rylstone,  304  ;  Prfe- 
face  to  second  edition  of  Lyrical 
Ballads,  8  ;  Postscript  to  Poems  of 
1835,  90. 
Wuthering  Heights,  39. 

Zola,  5,  6,  8, 12,  38,  217. 


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